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How To

How to Purchase a Holiday Ham

Contributor
By eHow Contributing Writer

Ham can take on myriad flavors, including honey, bourbon, pepper, apple and maple. No mere pork leg, ham is either wet-brined in a mix of salt, water and sugar or dry-cured with salt, herbs and sugar, then aged for several weeks and smoked. Dry-cured hams require 48 hours of soaking to remove the salt, hours of poaching, and finally baking.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Instructions
  1. Step 1

    Tally up your guest list. A bone-in ham will provide three to four servings per pound, while a boneless ham will yield four to five. Factor in extra for leftovers; there's nothing like a honey-baked-ham sandwich or country-fried ham and eggs.

  2. Step 2

    Order as far as three weeks in advance. Ask your butcher or grocer's meat department how to place an order for holiday ham.

  3. Step 3

    Browse Web sites and gourmet catalogs, but factor in extra time and money for shipping. Savor a Honey Baked Ham (honeybaked. com), the Starbucks of the ham business. Presliced, these hams range from about $50 to $120. The Holiday Ham Company (holidayham.com), Williams-Sonoma (williams-sonoma.com), Neiman Marcus (neimanmarcus.com) and Harry and David (harryanddavid.com) all offer a variety of high-quality hams.

Tips & Warnings
  • Premium hams have less water added to the meat to plump it up.
  • To kill potentially harmful trichinosis, heat the inside of an uncooked ham to at least 155 degrees F (68 C).
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