The beauty of a simple at-home-glaze is, you make up your own rules.Where it is traditional to use brown sugar, pineapple, and cherries to fit-out and cover your ham for roasting, it is not completely necessary. There are several ways to keep your ham from drying out and burning without all that fruit, although it is tasty. Since I am diabetic, as was my father before me,it is hard to resist saying don't glaze it. However, I shall resist.With all the wonderful cooking bags available, it is now much easier to trim the fat off your ham,spritz it with water, put it in a bag in your roaster, and wait until it is nearly done, like, within an hour, before you add the glaze.Of course, if you have gone the scored and cloves route, and added the pineapple, then it is simplicity itself to reserve the pineapple juice, mix it with brown sugar,with just a touch of vinegar,blend to the desired consistency, and brush it on your ham,as thickly as you like. Just remember that you will need to reapply the glaze at least once for it to be and even coating that will get down into the meat, and glisten on the top. If you don't go for pineapple, then any good fruit juice will work. Orange juice is best, but I have also seen it done with apple juice, and even some kinds of grape. If you prefer a stronger pink color of glaze, then perhaps you might want to try grenadine syrup, with just a hint of brown sugar, and then some fruit juice and vinegar. If you are trying to limit your intake of sugars, then you will want to go for center slices of the meat, rather than go into a sugar coma, because grenadine is very sweet.On the flip side, you could also use the juice from a jar of maraschino cherries.
After reading this over, I see that you may have been waiting for more, like, measurements.Well, for that sort of recipe you can go to a cookbook, such as one at the library, but the reason I don't post them for a thing like ham glaze is, it is completely subjective, and personal. The amount of the brown sugar depends on the size of the ham in question, and the amount of fruit juice you have left over from the pineapple juice.In addition, you may want your glaze to be thick or thin. I don't know that, only the cook knows what they want. Don't be afraid to play with it! Pile on the fruit to keep the meat juicy, and use the glaze liberally to seal in the flavor and put a nice shine on the finished product!
OUI?
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