Citrus & Maple Christmas Ham

If you're after a sweet, crispy, citrusy, absolute heaven Christmas Ham then here you go. The choice of ham to me, matters, but I understand this is very last minute! I sourced a ham that didn't contain any nasties (MSG, other flavour enhancers, preservatives, and so on), and instead this contains salt, celery powder and herbs only in the curing mix. This way it becomes a beautiful food to incorporate whilst still feeling great as the days go on.

Enjoy xx

Ingredients:

• One large leg of ham, for this recipe it was 4.5kg
• Juice of 2 oranges
• 2 tbsps seeded mustard
• 1 cup maple syrup 
• 2 tsps garlic powder
• 2 tsps onion powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/8th cup cloves or enough to coat your ham with roughly an inch spacing them apart.

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 170 degrees Celsius.
2. Remove the skin of the ham VERY carefully, keeping as much fat on the ham as possible using a sharp. It will surprise you how easy it is to remove, so don't be scared!
3. Score the ham by slicing across the ham roughly an inch apart, and then down, again roughly an inch apart. You don't need to be really careful about this, it doesn't require overthinking! 
4. Using a deep baking tray, line it with baking paper and then place your ham inside, 
5. Extract the juice from the two oranges, which is roughly 1 cup of juice in total.
6. Combine the orange juice with the maple syrup, salt, mustard, maple syrup, garlic and onion.
7. Place the cloves on top of the ham just where the fat is, where you have scored, making them roughly 2 inches away from each other.
8. Using a spoon or a basting brush, evenly cover the ham with the sauce. It will be very runny, but make sure you coat it as much as possible. The sauce will go into the dish, keep it there as you will continue to coat the ham in this sauce as time goes.
9. Add in 1/2-1 cup of water to the bottom of the dish.
10. Cover the ham tightly with baking paper and then alfoil (the baking paper is just to prevent aluminium going into your food!).
11. Place it in the oven, and cook for 1 hour and 30 minutes in total however set a timer for every 20 minutes to baste the ham with the sauce in the baking tray with a spoon or a basting brush. This will ensure the ham is sweet, juicy and YUM.
12. After one hour, remove the baking paper and alfoil and cook for a further 30 minutes for it to go golden on top. If it needs extra time to go golden, just keep the time going. As the temperature is low and there's water at the base, it will really prevent the ham going dry - so don't stress if it needs longer to go caramelised on top! 
13. Remove from the oven, and ENJOY!