Tag Archives: Corned Ham

The Big Five-O

Posted by Bean Pie and Baking in Cooking School, Happy Owl Baking, Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I just passed my one-year anniversary with WordPress (they sent a card) and I realized that this post is my fiftieth.  Fifty sounds huge, right? What to say? How to commemorate? How’s ’bout with some photos?

I’ve been a busy little bee with these final three baking lab courses. We’ve been buckled down for winter over here in Maryland (which is pretty much like a mild Spring to most other states in the Northeast and New England, but Marylanders take the threat of snow verrrrrrrry seriously…) and it’s been nose to the grindstone for me, so I haven’t done much running around discovering local eats BUT there are a few things I need to do before I split this joint: I need to find a Berger cookie (people love them and tears were flowing last month when the shop closed down for a few weeks), eat at a decent restaurant, and experience the Southern Maryland Stuffed Ham I mentioned last year when I was on that quest for fresh ham. So stay tuned for all that fun.

In the meantime, I’ve got pictures (click on them for the slideshow).  And reservations tonight at Baltimore’s Woodberry Kitchen, the chef of which is a finalist for the 2013 James Beard Best Chef Mid-Atlantic.

Adv. Pastry Practical Exam #2: Crystallized Ginger Apple Crisp with Apple Brandy Ice Cream and Cranberry Orange Sauce.
Dead Dough Project: Preparing the smaller elements
Dead Dough Project: Too bad this is blurry because the snails are starting to look super cute.
Dead Dough Project: Stylized flowers
Dead Dough Project: The finished product, by hook or by crook, with lots of gritted teeth and forced design adjustments — the logo for Happy Owl Baking!
Intermed. Cakes: Rolling out the sky-mottled fondant base.
Intermed. Cakes: Fondant inlays
Intermed. Cakes: Working the fondant onto a basted pound cake.
Intermed. Cakes: Yay! Relatively smooth.
Intermed. Cakes: Playing with airbrushing. Ignore the black sky — it was supposed to be gradations of blue clouds, but…
Adv. Pastry: Playing with mosaic saucing.
Adv. Pastry: Sunrise Tarts with poached orange slices and tuile.

The fresh ham fake-out

Posted by Bean Pie and Baking in Good Eats and tagged with , ,
Citrus and Mustard Glazed (Fresh) Ham

The ham that was a pork roast in disguise.

Turns out a “fresh ham” is just a pork roast! Yes, a 10 lb. pork roast. I love pork roast but a week of roast pork leftovers is not what I had in mind. One can’t make ham sandwiches, deviled ham, or ham balls with pork roast.  My ham hankerin’ has not been fulfilled so it’s back to the drawing board. My Aunt Pat and I put our heads together. We consider that perhaps I am thinking of corned ham. Corned ham is a Southern Maryland thing — especially around Easter —  and since the one-time only fresh ham I remember came from my aunt Pat and Pat now comes from Southern Maryland…well, it adds up.

We’ll get to the bottom of this. In the meantime, here is a recipe from Saveur magazine for Corned Ham where you literally corn your own ham by brining it in salt for seven days (and seven days was conservative. Many of the recipes I looked at stated eleven days!). Hmm. I don’t know if Corned Ham is 7-days-of-brining-in-your-own-fridge good. Fortunately, I currently reside in Maryland and can take a little country day-drive down Rt. 301 to Southern Maryland to get one, if I want. Yay, the South! Click here for Saveur magazine’s recipe for Corned Ham.

If you’re going to corn your own ham then clearly time is not an issue for you so why not keep on truckin’ and turn it into a Southern Maryland Stuffed Ham? Stuffed Ham is a whole ‘nother bird, so to speak. It’s like a country girl’s Tur-Duck-en. Check it out:

Find this picture, with links to recipes and info. about Southern Maryland Stuffed Ham, here:
http://www.hearthcook.com/Monthrecipe/aaRecham.html

Now I need to go online and figure out what to do with 5 lbs. of leftover pork roast.