Today I braved the supermarkets to pick up ingredients for the mammoth piece of gammon we received. I told you about it yesterday, and the fact that I am even blogging about the results means I didn’t burn it. That is a bonus!

I was following this BBC recipe, but I sort of modified it for my own results, due to constraints with both time and the size of the dishes that I had to work with. I’m not good at photographing food, it turns out, but I’ve got a few illustrations along the way.

So, I left the gammon in a bowl of cold water overnight, to help desalinate it a little. Today, I removed the gammon, and put it in a pan - covering with a little quite a lot of cider, and the rest water.

My pan was not quite big enough to hold the entire piece and completely cover it with water, so I figured I would spend the time watching it simmer and turning it every now and again. One needs an iPad in the kitchen to amuse oneself whilst keeping an eye on simmering food, you know?

I did get to spend some time chopping up the other ingredients though. Carrots, onions, garlic, peppercorns, cloves, bay leaves and a bit of brown sugar.

That all went in with the cider/water mixture to add flavour to the gammon. I left it simmering for about an hour, turning frequently because of the small pot.

Once it had been boiling for an hour, I removed it from the heat and placed the gammon in a baking tray. It’s quite hard to lift a hefty piece of meat out of… well anywhere, really. I need to do some weightlifting, I think.

For the next part, I followed the instructions on the recipe, melting some marmalade and lemon juice to make a nice glaze. I pushed some cloves into the top of the meat, and although I didn’t really know what I was doing, it did feel quite professional.

I scooped out the carrot/onion mixture from the discarded water above, and roasted that, alongside some potatoes and yorkshire puddings that are not pictured.

I was worried that it was all going to burn, and I’d open up the oven to find a blackened crisp of meat, but as it turns out, only the marmalade had blackened a little, which makes sense because of the sugar involved.

It was absolutely delicious, lots of flavour in the gammon, although it still was pretty salty. Most importantly, I think Mr C approved.

There’s plenty to go round too. We’ll be eating gammon with everything, sandwiches, pasta, curry, who knows?

I’m not sure I’m going to go out of my way to cook large bits of meat in the future, but I’m happy that I’m not scared to do it anymore. I’m not sure I’d be confident with poultry though.