Have you started thinking about what you’re going to do about Easter brunch yet? In our town, lots of restaurants have wonderful brunches, but if you haven’t already made your reservations, you might be out of luck. Easter Sunday is the perfect day for baking a ham.
I’ve already made our reservations, so I made a ham tonight for dinner. But for brunch, it would be delicious with biscuits! I promise, the hardest part is picking out the right ham at the store.
There are lots different kinds of ham out there, different cuts of pork, cured and non cured, country and smoked, sliced and nonsliced, half and whole, boneless and bone-in; and it’s confusing. I couldn’t explain it all if I wanted to! For this recipe what you are looking for is a 7-9 pound, bone-in, spiral sliced, smoked ham. I like the Petit Jean hams, a local brand, which I find at my Walmart. This type of ham is already completely cooked, so all you’re doing is heating it. Simple!
How to Bake a Ham
1) Unwrap the ham and read the cooking instructions. It will tell you how long they suggest you cook it to heat it through, the baking temperature, and how much the ham weighs.
2) Remove the plastic disc covering the bone (you might not see it at first). I don’t know why it’s there.
3) Place the ham cut side down in a roasting pan with a rack. I call it “face down”, but hams don’t really have faces… You can use a casserole dish if you don’t have a roasting pan, but I like the way it turns out better in a pan with a rack.
4) Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil.
5) Cook at 325 for 10-12 minutes per pound (the pounds will be listed on the tag on the packaging, as well as exactly how long you should cook it per pound), so you’ll end up cooking it for an hour and a half or so. Depending on how long you’ll be at church, you could put it in the oven as you’re walking out the door and it will be ready when you get home.
6) Let the ham rest for 10-20 minutes. A spiral cut ham is already sliced, so it’s easy to serve.
