Okay - Question number one: For the first time I’ve found me a bottle of liquid smoke here in Australia. I know hickory smoke goes good with nice steak, is there anything else I should be pairing it with for good taste?
Number two: Explain a coca cola baked ham to me. I want to do one for christmas, and have the ham lined up to pick up a couple of days before the big day. Now do I just bake the ham in the coke, basting it from time to time until it gets all syrupy and dark and lovely, or is there more to it?
(Just a caveat - anything involving pineapple [which I’ve seen in some recipes] is out. Hubby won’t eat it.)
That’s the basic gist. We also poke some whole cloves into the ham (about 10 or so) and let them stay in there while it bakes. This gives it a great flavor.
Here’s Alton Brown of Good Eats’ recipe for country ham. Gives you some good info about how to go about the whole thing. Also, he uses Dr Pepper. Is that available in Oz?
THEN… there’s his grandma’s city ham Mustard, brown sugar, bourbon and ginger snaps. HA!
In American, a ham is a leg of pork, not a cured leg. I tried making coca-cola baked ham a few years ago. I followed the recipe to the letter, but it tasted terrible - too salty to eat. Then it dawned on me - I was supposed to use an uncured leg of pork.
I think the confusion might be between American sugar-cured ham (which still requires refrigeration) and traditional cured ham, which can (I believe) be stored for some time at room temperature.
I do know that if you need barbecue sauce and don’t have any, you can make a quick sauce from equal parts Coca-Cola and Heinz ketchup. That trick was taught me by my first girlfriend (an experienced older woman who taught me quite a few things, now that I think of it).
I used a couple drops of liquid smoke in an oven-roasted mix of potatoes, onions, and apples, with butter. It was a German dish that was supposed to include bacon as well, but I was making it for vegetarians to eat as well, and this provided a hint of that hickory-smoked bacon flavor without the meat.
I use a few drops of liquid smoke in my chili. As was mentioned earlier on, be careful. You can always add more, you can’t take any away or mask it if you use too much.
I put liquid smoke in my salmon spread:
large (14.75 oz) can of salmon (reserve liquid)
8 oz cream cheese
8 oz water chestnuts-chopped
shredded carrots, chopped celery, squash, onions, whatever veggie you want to add
garlic powder, salt, pepper to personal taste
1/8 tsp. liquid smoke
add reserved salmon liquid if you want it softer.
Good stuff with the smoke, some of those ideas look really nice. Thanks for the warnings, though. I didn’t have any idea of how to use it, and could forsee myself (or hubby) dousing something with it… Now I know that’s a bad idea
Mmm. Oh dear then. Coz I know it’s just a woolies ham that I’ve got waiting for me. They don’t seem to sell any other kind, beyond the “already prepared” christmas ham. Now is the dilemma - do I take the warning to heart, but throw caution to the wind and try it anyway? Or do I just take the ham as is, and leave the coca-cola baked one for another time?
Maybe I should pick up a little ham when I go shopping today, and have a bit of a test run? If it fails, then at least I haven’t ruined the christmas ham…
Also, thanks for the Alton Brown tip, ZipperJJ. They used to sell Dr. Pepper over here, but recently everyone seems to have stopped stocking it. No more Pepper for me
Oh, make sure you use regular coke, not diet. You need the real sugar to caramelize; the diet version will taste awful. How do I know this? You don’t want to know.
Awesome, thanks antechinus. I’ve got a small test-ham as it were, so I’ll give that a go, probably this afternoon.
Put the smoke on some steaks last night, just a few drops. Man, they were the nicest porterhouse steaks I’ve ever had. I’m going to make some hickory-smoke bbq sauce and see about doing some ribs next.
