Pineapple Vinegar Glazed Gammon
Cooked over fire or in the oven using Kai by MATBLAK Maple Smoked Pineapple Vinegar
Serves 6 to 8. Cook time 3 to 4 hours.
There are dishes that announce themselves and dishes that simply arrive, unhurried and inevitable. This is the latter. A gammon joint, patient over gentle heat, visited repeatedly by a vinegar of uncommon complexity until something quietly magnificent occurs.
What you will need
2 to 2.5kg smoked or unsmoked gammon joint, rind on if you can find it
Kai by MATBLAK Maple Smoked Pineapple Vinegar, approximately 100ml
Coarse sea salt
Cracked black pepper
How it unfolds
If cooking over fire, arrange your coals for indirect heat at around 160C. A handful of apple or cherry wood will introduce a whisper of sweetness to the smoke, a quiet conversation between fruit and flame. For the oven, preheat to 160C fan and set a wire rack over a roasting tray with a little water beneath to keep the air gentle and humid.
Pat the gammon dry. Score the fat in a diamond pattern, not deeply, just enough to invite what is coming. Season with pepper. Place it over indirect heat and leave it to its own counsel for around two hours, until the internal temperature reaches 60C.
Now begins the ritual. Every 20 to 30 minutes, mist the entire surface of the gammon with Maple Smoked Pineapple Vinegar. Each application builds on the last, pineapple and maple and smoke accumulating in layers until a thin, trembling glaze begins to form across the surface. This is patience made delicious.
When the internal temperature reaches 72C, apply a more generous spray and allow the heat to set and deepen the glaze for a further 15 minutes. Watch it darken. This is the moment.
Remove from the fire or oven and leave to rest, uncovered, for 20 minutes. The surface should be glossy and faintly sticky, the colour of old amber. Slice thickly. Pour over any resting juices. Then, just before it reaches the table, one final misting of vinegar. The acidity cuts through the fat with quiet authority and brings, as it always does, a sense that everything is exactly as it should be.
