Preparation Notes: Plus soaking, cooling and resting
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Yields:
4
Prep Time:
15 mins
Cook Time:
1 hr 20 mins
Total Time:
1 hr 35 mins
Ingredients
Approximately 1.1 kg (2½lb) gammon joint
1 small carrot, halved
½ onion, quartered
½ green top from 1 leek
½tbsp each light muscovado sugar and English mustard
1Tbsp. clear honey for the parsley sauce
25g (1oz) each butter and flour
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
1 small bay leaf
450ml (¾ pint) semi-skimmed milk
2Tbsp. finely chopped curly parsley
Directions
Step 1
Soak gammon in cold water overnight, then drain. If time is short, put gammon into a large pan of water, bring to just under the boil, then simmer for 10min. Discard water and continue recipe.
Step 2
Put the drained gammon into a large pan with the carrot, onion and leek top. Add enough cold water to cover. Bring to just under the boil, then simmer gently, covered, for 1hr - don't let the water boil as it will toughen the meat. Leave to cool in the liquid for another 1hr, then remove. Set aside gammon stock for Wednesday's hotpot recipe and discard vegetables.
Step 3
Preheat oven to 200ºC (180ºC) mark 6. Remove gammon rind and score a diamond pattern in the fat. Put gammon into a small roasting tray. Mix together the sugar, mustard and honey and brush half over the fat. Roast for 20min, brushing every 5min with remaining mustard mixture until golden and sticky. Transfer to a board and set aside to rest for 10min.
Step 4
Meanwhile, make parsley sauce: Melt butter in a small pan, stir in flour, nutmeg and bay leaf and cook for 1min. Take off the heat and gradually blend in the milk. Return to the heat and stir until thickened - the sauce should just coat the back of a wooden spoon. Simmer for 2min. Remove bay leaf. Stir in the parsley, season, then set aside a third.
Step 5
Slice the gammon and serve with seasonal vegetables and the parsley sauce.
An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).
