Slow cooker cola ham
- Prepare
- less than 30 mins
- Cook
- over 2 hours
- Serve
- Serves 10
This slow cooker ham is cooked in cola until tender before being smothered in a honey and mustard glaze. Using the slow cooker instead of the oven is a great way to save energy, and giving the joint a quick blast under the grill at the end makes the glaze deliciously sticky and golden.
By Ella Tarn
Ingredients
- 2kg/4lb 8oz unsmoked boneless gammon joint
- 1 onion, roughly chopped
- 2 litre/3½ pints cola
- 50g/1¾oz runny honey
- 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
Method
Put the gammon and onion in the bowl of a slow cooker then pour over enough cola to just cover the ham. Put the lid on and cook on high for 7 hours. Carefully remove the gammon from the slow cooker, transfer to a chopping board and discard the onion and cola.
Preheat the grill to high. Use a small knife to carefully cut away the top layer of skin, leaving the fat underneath intact, then score diamond shapes all over the fat.
Mix the honey and mustard together in a small bowl then brush half of it over the fat on the ham. Cook under the grill for 7–8 minutes, basting with the remaining glaze until golden and sticky.
Leave to rest, loosely covered with foil, for 20 minutes before carving and serving. The ham can be stored covered in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Recipe tips
It's best to use standard cola in this recipe, rather than diet versions. Some artificial sweeteners become bitter when cooked and none of them reduce to a glorious sticky glaze in the same way that sugar does.
The amount of cola you need will vary depending on the shape of your slow cooker. It's best to use a small slow cooker that the ham fits in fairly snugly. If you use a large, wide slow cooker you will need a lot of cola to cover the ham.
If you don't have quite enough cola to cover the meat, top it up with water.
You can use a smaller gammon joint if you wish, particularly as large 2kg/4lb 8oz joints can be quite tricky to find outside of the festive period. Use half an onion, a tablespoon of honey, a heaped teaspoon of mustard and enough cola to cover the ham in the slow cooker (the amount needed depends more on the size of your slow cooker than the size of the ham). The cook time can be reduced by an hour.
Should I soak ham joints before cooking?
Soaking used to be an essential step due to the heavy salting used to preserve the meat. In the UK, supermarket gammon is unlikely to need any additional soaking, but a more artisanal one, or a ham from a butcher, could well need soaking before cooking.
To be sure, cut a small piece from one end of the gammon and quickly fry for just a couple of minutes on each side, then taste. If it is very salty, the gammon will need soaking in a large pan of cold water for 8–12 hours (this should be done in the fridge). If not too salty, it can be brought to the boil in a pan of water, then drained and refreshed with more water before starting the cooking process.
