Boiled Ham - Ver Jus, Cloves, Whisky Mustard, and Lime Marmalade

I suppose I should have blogged a day by day record of the cooking from the larder.  The problem is that with this '2 days at home and 5 days living on the boat in London' lark I do a huge amount of cooking on Saturday and Sunday, and then live off buckets of soup and stew during the week.

We've no shortage of food really, and have freezers to thank for the abundance and variety that we are able to enjoy even without going to the supermarket for a month.  For instance this weekend I boiled a gammon joint that I had purchased very cheaply after Christmas (supermarket had a super cut price deal on them and I bought about 4 of 3-4kg each - made two into gammon steaks and froze the other two whole).

The gammon was simmered gently in ver jus (green grape juice - several gallons of which I was able to make when we had to cut the neighbour's grape vine back off the garage roof last September.  It had been a mast year and I had to think of something to do with about 40kg of unripe grapes.  Result?  Lots of frozen very sour grape juice.)

Anyway the gammon simmered in sour grape juice, a couple of tablespoons of grainy whisky mustard we'd made before Christmas  2012, half a dozen cloves, and half a cup or so of runny lime marmalade - a disaster from about 14 months ago which I am slowly working my way through (see earlier posts on lime marmalade....)

The result was just divine.  After it was cooked, I strained the liquid and thickened it up to make a zingy mustard sauce for the hot ham.

Of course we will be eating cold ham with everything for a week.