Anatomy of a Classic: Glazed Ham with Buttermilk Drop Biscuits
Want to kick up your holiday ham this year? Billy Allin, chef and owner of Cakes and Ale in Decatur, Georgia gives his signature, tangy take in this article from Garden and Gun. Take our word, it will not disappoint!
He first encountered the version that would come to define his Christmas as a teenager in Greenwood, South Carolina. Each year, his family’s friends the Harmons would soak a country ham in a cooler on their back porch for days, then coat it with a mixture of mustard and brown sugar. The resulting glaze would settle into the pan drippings, rendering a thick, sweet cousin of redeye gravy draping slices Allin couldn’t wait to snag.
Photo courtesy of Garden and Gun
“From the time I was fifteen until I was in college, we went over to the Harmons’ house and had that ham,” he says. “It’d be sitting out on their table with this glaze dripping all over it, and you would grab a biscuit, too. Pretty soon you were just digging into the glaze, it was so good.”
These days Allin doesn’t fuss with soaking the salt out of a country ham. He substitutes a good-quality, bone-in precooked ham, which gets a little added character from some whole cloves punched into the surface. But it’s the mustard, brown sugar, and vinegar glaze he slathers on top that’s the transformative element. Together with a bit of black pepper, the ingredients blend into a tangy gloss-coat that borrows the best flavors of a honey-baked ham and a South Carolina–style pork barbecue sauce.
Recipe
Glazed Ham with Buttermilk Drop Biscuits Serves 6-8
Ingredients 2 cups brown sugar 1 cup yellow mustard ¼ cup apple cider vinegar ½ tsp. black pepper 1 5-lb. precooked, unglazed, bone-in ham 10 whole cloves
Preparation Preheat oven to 325°F. Combine first 4 ingredients in a small bowl and set aside. Place ham on a foil-lined sheet tray, stud with cloves, and let sit at room temperature 30 minutes. Then, cover with foil and bake 15 minutes. Uncover ham, brush with half of the brown sugar mixture, and bake another half hour, basting with pan juices and the rest of the mixture every 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let rest before slicing.
Buttermilk Drop Biscuits Makes 12 two-inch biscuits
Ingredients 2 cups self-rising White Lily flour 1 tsp. salt 1 cup vegetable shortening (lightly packed) ⅔–¾ cup buttermilk
Preparation Preheat oven to 400°F. Stir together flour and salt, then dot with shortening and blend with a pastry cutter or your fingers until mixture resembles small pellets. Stir in buttermilk until just combined, adding a little more liquid if dough seems dry. Drop approximately 2-tablespoon-size mounds of dough onto a parchment-paper-lined sheet tray. Bake 7 minutes, rotate pan, and bake 6 to 7 minutes more.