Potted Ham

There comes a time of year when it gets a bit too hot for pea and ham soup, so short of just pigging out on them, I had to find a use for the ham hock and knuckle from my latest half-pig.

Mrs Beeton came to the rescue with a recipe for Potted Ham.

To update it, I used butter instead of the lard in the original recipe. I used 400gms of ham off two hocks, which I cooked at 140°C for about 4 hours, covered, and with just a little water in the roasting tin. I mixed this in the food processor with 150gms of clarified butter, 3 pinches of mace and a large pinch of Cayenne pepper.

I was going to put it into small pots, top with a sage leaf, and seal it with more clarified butter. However, Pauline decided that it wasn't going to last long enough to bother!

To serve, soften it by microwaving on 'defrost' until soft enough to spread, then spread on bread, toast, crackers or melba toast.

Next time I'll probably not bother clarifying the butter, and will add some of the cooking liquid; hopefully then it will spread from the fridge.

An alternative to this would be just to shred the meat with two forks, add the other ingredients, call it 'rillettes of ham', and charge £4.95 for it as a starter!