Serves: Plenty

Nat’s sister Courtney (of Japanese Bean fame) had her engagement party last week.

120 of her closest friends and family, waiters darting around with wine and food, a million candles and fairy lights and animated conversations made for a wonderful and memorable night: everything the beautiful couple deserved.

A big part of the evening’s success came from Courtney’s fastidious focus from spending several years as an Events organiser; spreadsheets, meticulous planning, an innate understanding of the relationship between the increasingly lateness of a night, wine and food.

So I was delegated the glazing of a 10kg ham. A ham destined for around midnight with hundreds of soft, and otherwise illegal breadrolls and a creamy, wholegrain mustard sauce.

A do-it-yourself station where sir or madam was encouraged to match the wine or beer in their hand with a roll or two.

Anyway, here is the simple and very effective glaze I did. A tablespoon or two of finely chopped rosemary would have been a nice addition, though start with this glaze and you’ll be onto a very good midnight thing.

Ingredients

5 – 10kg ham
1 cup maple syrup
4 tbsp brown sugar
4 tbsp seeded mustard
30 cloves

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180c.
2. Remove the skin from the ham, keeping as much fat on the flesh as possible. Discard the skin.
3. Score the fat and pin a clove into each corner of a score, making a quilt pattern as you go.
4. Mix together the maple syrup, brown sugar and seeded mustard and baste the ham all over the scored fat/flesh.