Christmas Eve Dinner in the Dutch Ovens, Part II

For a long time, it was a Christmas tradition of mine to make some wassail and take it to work.  That really doesn't work out very well at my new job, however, so I haven't done it in a couple of years.  Still, I like the flavors and the aroma of cinnamon, apple, and orange.

So, when Jodi said that her step-dad was coming over for dinner on Christmas Eve, and that he'd bought us a ham to cook up, I started thinking about what I could do with it.  She suggested something with the oranges we have.  That triggered the idea:  I could do the wassail on the ham!

Dutch Oven Wassail Ham

14" dutch oven

8-9 coals below
16-18 coals above

• Ham
• 1 Orange, sliced
• cloves

• 1/2 can orange juice concentrate
• 1/2 can apple juice concentrate
• 1/2 cup honey
• cinnamon
• Orange zest

My original intent was to cook this ham low and slow.  The ham itself was pre-cooked, so I would only need to bring it up to temperature with my flavorings, rather than actually cook the meat.  I wanted to set up my ovens to cook at about 250 degrees (F), but I'm not sure that I actually pulled that off.

First of all, this was also a pre-sliced ham, so it was easy to put the cloves in the slots of the slices.  If it hadn't been pre-sliced, I would have cut the traditional diamond angle slashes in the top and inserted the cloves into those cuts.

I put the ham into the dutch oven, for starters.  I sliced up an orange into thin rings, and laid those on top of the ham.  The ones that were on more slopey sides, I secured with a half-toothpick.  With that little bit of preparation, I put the oven on the coals, listed above.  If I could have found my small oven thermometer, I would have put that in the bottom of the dutch oven, to monitor the surrounding air temperature.  I still think that in most conditions, those coal counts will be pretty accurate.  It was cold out, so that threw off my estimates.

After about an hour, I made the glaze from the second set of ingredients.  I put them all in an 8" dutch oven and put that on some coals so that it would reduce.  It did some, but I would have liked it to get thicker.  Still, I poured that over the ham.

From then on, I would check the internal temperature of the ham about ever half hour to 45 minutes or so, and, with a basting syringe, reapply the glaze.  It took about 2-3 hours, total.  I brought it up to 140 degrees, even though I'd heard that 120 is sufficient.  It didn't turn out dry, so I was pleased.

It was delicious, and it captured that wassail flavor.  I think next time, I'll go a little heavier on the cinnamon, and watch the heat on the oven better, to keep it closer to 250.

Next: Part III of the Christmas Dinner:  The Bread

EXTRA: I got contacted by a new dutch oven blogger!  Her site is http://dutchovenmadness.blogspot.com/.  She says she wants to cook in her dutch oven every day in 2010.  I'm looking forward to her recipes and experiences.

Mark has discovered a love of Dutch Oven Cooking. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.