Blackberry-Mustard Glazed Ham

This classic recipe will be well received at all of your holiday gatherings; try it with any flavor of fruit preserves you enjoy. Adorn the platter with fresh blackberries, apple slices, oregano, and flat-leaf parsley.

Yield: 20 servings (serving size: 3 ounces ham and about 2 teaspoons sauce)

Ingredients

• 1  (5-pound) 33%-less-sodium smoked, fully-cooked, bone-in ham half
• Cooking spray
• 1/2  cup  apple juice
• 1  (13-ounce) jar blackberry preserves
• 1  (7.3-ounce) jar whole-grain Dijon mustard

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°.

Trim fat and rind from ham. Score outside of ham in a diamond pattern. Place ham on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray.

Combine juice, preserves, and mustard in a medium bowl, stirring until well combined. Set aside half of preserves mixture.

Bake ham at 350° for 1 1/2 hours or until a thermometer registers 140°, basting with half of preserves mixture every 20 minutes. Remove ham from oven. Place ham on a platter; cover and let stand 15 minutes before slicing.

Place reserved preserves mixture in a large nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. Cook until reduced to 1 cup (about 15 minutes). Serve sauce with ham.

Wine note: Smoked ham is a wine challenge--the dominance of the smoke usually ends up making wine taste like water. But one part of the world has a lot of experience pairing ham and pork with wine, and that's the Alsace region of France. With a ham dish as complex as this one, opt for one of the most dramatic wines from Alsace: a dry muscat. Domaine Weinbach's Muscat Réserve 2003 ($38) is one of the best and dramatic enough to match this ham. Its exuberant fruity flavors must be experienced to be believed. -KM

Nutritional Information

Calories:

185 (27% from fat)

Fat:

5.6g (sat 1.6g,mono 2.3g,poly 0.5g)

Protein:

18.3g

Carbohydrate:

14.8g

Fiber:

1g

Cholesterol:

45mg

Iron:

1.5mg

Sodium:

1011mg

Calcium:

15mg