Hamming it up with Aldi this Christmas!!

I was asked to review a Three Bird Roast from Aldi this year for Christmas and as I had already been asked to review one for another supermarket I thought it would make a good comparison blog post.

However, by the time I got the voucher and managed to get to my local Aldi store they had run out of Three Bird Roasts and said they may possibly get some further stocks in on the 23rd or 24th of December.  I decided that would be cutting it too close and made a snap decision to purchase a gammon instead.

Aldi has a variety of hams and gammons and I picked a non smoked one with a bone.  Looking forward to left overs and soups!

I have a large stock pot but it wasn't really big enough for a 4.8kg gammon leaving quite a bit poking out from the top of the water.  I boiled the water once, drained it then filled it up again this time adding four large carrots sliced, two sticks of celery, two onions sliced and pepper.  I didn't add salt as gammon can sometime be quite salty.

I brought the water to the boil and let the whole pot bubble away for about three hours.  Every hour I turned the meat to make sure it would be evenly cooked through.

After the boiling I put the meat on a roasting tin, took off the outer layer of skin and made a few slashed to help get the glaze into.

I then based it with a heated mix of Barbados molasses, honey and ground chilli flakes.

 

I heated the oven to 180oF and roasted the meat for another couple of hours, basting it every 30 minutes.  The resulting piece of meat was so tender and sliced really evenly and thinly.

I prepared and cooked the meat on Christmas Eve primarily because of the length of time it would take to cook through (it weighed 4.8kg).

The gammon was tasty and I feel the mixture I coated it with tasted really lovely.  I served the meat on a really large platter with the sliced Three Bird Roast and roasted parsnips and carrots.

We have had sliced gammon and cheese and pickles for Boxing Day tea.

I kept the liquid that I cooked the gamon in which will make a great base for a lentil and ham soup and/or a ham and vegetable soup.

 

I received the ham from Aldi to cook for Christmas Day but I didn't receive any payment nor was I obliged to write a favourable post.