Why hello there, and welcome back to Kitchen Catastrophe, where one man wallows in carbs so we all can…eat some larb? Wasn’t a great idea to go for a rhyme there. I’m your regretful Rhymer and Recipe Two-Timer, Jon O’Guin. Today’s recipe is a blast from the past two ways, with a cruciferous side to spice things up. Of course, if you’d rather dodge the chatter and get straight to serving, here’s the link. Everyone else, let’s ham it up! 

Rube Goldberg Ain’t Got Nothing on Me

If you don’t know the name, Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist, engineer, and inventor who first made those complicated “wheel pulls a string to strike a match, burning a string to release a kite” contraptions that show up in cartoons and music videos.

Turns out, it’s pretty hard to fit “a large, overly complicated machine” into a concise, clean picture frame.

I bring it up because, as mentioned, today’s post ended up aligning with things I decided to do for the site last week…despite planning it a YEAR ago, and it also corrects an mistake I made 4 years ago. See, As the title says, today we’re making “Coke Ham”, which might be confusing for long-time readers of the site, because we ALREADY made Coke Ham. Coke Ham is the focus of our SECOND POST on the site, over 4 years ago. Itself a repost of the Blog from when it was posted on Facebook the year before THAT. Why revisit the recipe? Well, actually, I didn’t really intend to. I mean, I PERSONALLY remake the recipe every year, but I wasn’t planning to write it up. I was just going to write up a side dish, and reference that we also made Coke Ham, which you can find in the old post…and then, as I was updating the post tags this weekend, as per our talk on Thursday, I remembered that there was another problem:  In the early days of the site, we didn’t always put the full recipe in a legible form at the end of post. I told you all the measurements, temps, and cooking times in the post itself, so why repeat myself? And the Coke Ham post is one of them. If you want the recipe, you’ve got to personally read the entire post, skimming through jokes and references to find the relevant details.

Well, since then, we’ve become moderately more professional, if somewhat less humorous. Which isn’t anyone’s fault: younger Jon was flexing his funny bones (a painful process best left to professionals) much more frequently, doing Improv 4-5 days a week in those days, and was in a much healthier mental space. And a much healthier PHYSICAL space, since, you know, he was living in the Before Times, prior to the Pandemic.

Represented here by this adorable rabbit.
Also, he was like, 30-50 pounds lighter.

So now I can remedy that, (the lack of recipe, not the pandemic, my powers are only so great) by writing up the recipe now, and plugging it back in the old post, just to make sure you can get it.  So let’s do a quick recap of the Coke Ham, for anyone not up to date. 

Coked Out

Coke Ham is a recipe that was brought to my attention by a former College roommate of mine, David Reynolds, a man who literally hundreds of people have entrusted with teaching their children, while only dozens have made the mistake of entrusting me with that task, many of whom would later complain to my supervisor that I was teaching them wrong. The basic process is “Boil ham in coca-cola, glaze and roast”.  Did I mention it’s a BASIC process?

The idea is that coca-cola serves as way to infuse the ham with flavor during the boiling process, since A: it’s a flavored liquid, and thus cooking ANYTHING in it will result in a flavor exchange, and B: the acidic nature of the soda will allow it to penetrate the ham more deeply, causing even GREATER transfer of flavor.  The sugars left behind will caramelize, and the flavor compounds in Coke (often a mixture of citrus, vanilla, cinnamon, and other spices) will be incorporated, all of which play well with the glaze.

It also forms the backbone of the precious hambrew.

The glaze, by the way, does have an extra step, where you score the ham in a diamond pattern, studding cloves in at every junction, and then spread a mixture of molasses and dry mustard powder over the ham before roasting it for a bit, a process I never have a GREAT picture of, because, as the picture of my glaze-sodden hand in the earlier post indicates, it’s a little too hands-on for one person to take pictures of easily.

The whole recipe takes around 6 hours, assuming an 8 pound ham, with about 45 minutes of “effort”: You plop the ham in the pop, and wait 2-4 hours depending on the size of the ham, and then pull it out,  cool it, rub it down, and roast it for another 45 minutes. The hardest part is the 10-20 minutes of hauling a large, now structurally unsound ham from boiling hot coca cola, and getting it onto a tray to cool before then rubbing it with glaze. And the number of times I forget the “NOW WAIT FOR IT TO COOL” stage, leading to me going “ow ow ow, fuck shit damn” as I scorch my porky fingers on sticky pork.

I continue to use this picture because I went through an irritating number of acrobatics to take it.

The result is delicious, and something I forgot to buy ingredients for on our weekly grocery run today, so we’re either skipping it this year, or we’ve got to make another grocery run. I haven’t asked. I kind of forgot Easter was this Sunday, despite discussing it multiple times.

And…that’s it. While there’s SOME interesting details to unpack about Coca-Cola, maybe we’ll save that til Thursday, and instead head over to my suspicious cruciferous.  

The Big Brass Band

In case you haven’t just googled the term, “Cruciferous” is a word used to refer to a family of fairly “spicy” vegetables, primarily of the Brassica genus, which I have rambled about EXTENSIVELY, particularly the specific species brassica oleracea, a word I keep thinking I’m fucking up, so I change it, and then I find out I was right the first time, and have to change it back. If you missed those rants: b. Oleracea is a species of plant with a startling number of distinct cultivars, including Broccoli, Cauliflower, Kale, Cabbage, Brussels Sprouts, Collard Greens, and Kohlrabi. I’ve also previously claimed Bok Choy was a member, but apparently it’s a member of brassica rapa, which has been cultivated into Bok Choy, Napa Cabbage, Rapini, and Turnips. As I briefly touched on in our Spicy Coconut Collard Greens post, the larger genus contains a LOT more vegetables, including all mustard plants and canola/rapeseed (The US, and I believe parts of Canada refer to the rapeseed plant as the Canola plant.) meaning that brassicas are the vegetable in VEGETABLE OIL.

Cruciferous goes a little beyond that designation…because it’s LITERALLY a reference to the taxonomic FAMILY Cruciferae, meaning it’s the step above the Brassicas, and also contains like, Wasabi, Radishes, Horseradish, Arugula and Watercress. The family name was changed later to fit standard plant naming patterns, but the word still hangs on for dietary reasons, since they share relative chemical compositions, so you can suggest someone avoid/increase consumption of them.

Which means that, if you used mashed cauliflower instead of potatoes, like this is, and filled it with sliced cabbage, you could have a purely cruciferous Colcannon. You could even flavor it with horseradish! It’d be a family reunion!

Now, the recipe I’m using is one I picked up several years ago, I BELIEVE for an Easter dinner, but it could have been some other holiday. I snagged it off of Food52, a resource I haven’t referenced in a while, from Fiveandspice, which appears to have once been a food blog that has since moved to instagram/other commercial ventures, so I’ll just link where I found it, and hope that settles the case of attribution.

As with the Coke Ham, the recipe is simple: sauté some onions and garlic in butter, add ginger, then add thinly sliced cabbage.

Pictured here. For reasons I don’t understand.
Like, did we not think you’d understand the concept?
(the answer is actually “for visual contrast”)

And that list is all but one ingredient, if you don’t include salt and pepper. Toss the cabbage in the aromatics and butter, and let cook for 15-20 minutes on medium heat. You want the cabbage to soften up, and to start to caramelize, so covering the pan, and only stirring every couple minutes, will help those goals.

Once you’re starting to get some browning, you add heavy cream to the pan, turning the heat to low, and scraping up any fond that’s formed on the bottom of the pan. That fond, the caramelized flavor, is the key part to this dish, so rely on the brownness of your cabbage over the time frame. I’ve had days where for some reason the damn stuff just didn’t want to brown, and it took 40 minutes to get the right color. But hold out for it before you add the cream and get everything scraped up and stirred together. The pop a lid on, and let simmer for 10 minutes. Then pop the lid off.

Damn, look how DIFFERENT it looks! It’s a great thing we had that earlier picture to establish that!
Also, this is the cabbage BEFORE the cream, so we’ve solved one problem to cause another. But I only took a picture of the creamed cabbage on the plate.

 With the lid off, taste it, and season with salt and pepper, before cooking for another couple minutes, just to let some of the liquid cook out, and thicken up the cream “sauce”.  The result is salty, sweet, creamy, and complex. It’s great next to a salty-sweet ham, hot from roasting. Of course, with two things that rich, you might need something to cut through that. Last year, we decided to do Bang Bang Cauliflower, because when I suggested “an acidic or spicy slaw”, Nate and my mom said “I will agree with spicy, and vegetable, but I’ll be damned if I’ll eat it cold.”

Also, since onions and garlic are both alliums, that means that EVERY vegetable used on this plate came from only two families.

And that’s…all I have to say? Honestly, I’m a little shocked. You and I both know what a windbag I can be. But, like, there’s not a lot to talk about that I haven’t already covered… I guess I could note that the recipe I got off Dave seems to be an adaptation of a recipe by Nigella Lawson? (or maybe he told me that.) But…otherwise, yeah. I’m out of stuff to talk about. (I blame re-reading Pigging Out. Now I’m subconsciously worried I’ve gotten TOO informative and stuffy. DAMN YOU, HIP ME OF THE PAST!)

THURSDAY: MAYBE WE’LL DO COKE. TALK ABOUT COCA COLA, I MEAN. THIS WOULD BE A TERRIBLE TIME TO DO COCAINE. YOU’D BE STUCK INSIDE WITH TOO MUCH ENERGY, OR OUT AND ABOUT SNIFFLING WITH NO ONE WANTING TO LISTEN TO YOUR NEW STREAMING SERVICE IDEA. OR MAYBE WE’LL FINALLY DO UGLY DELICIOUS. OR WE’LL MAKE EGG SALAD, SINCE EVERYONE STUCK AT HOME COULD USE MORE RECIPES. WHO’S TO SAY?

MONDAY: I THINK I WANT TO COVER AN EGG SANDWICH I MADE LAST WEEK, BUT WE’VE GOT A COUPLE OPTIONS. OOH, MAYBE I’LL MAKE NEXT WEEK AN “EGG WEEK” SINCE IT’S AFTER EASTER, AND WE’LL DO OMELETTE SANDWICHES MONDAY, AND EGG SALAD TUESDAY.  

RECIPES

Coke Ham

Serves 8 (can be scaled)

Ingredients

FOR THE HAMBREW

4.5 pound ham

1 onion (peeled and cut in half)

2 liters Coca-Cola

FOR THE GLAZE

1 handful of cloves

1 heaped tablespoon molasses

2 teaspoons English mustard powder

2 tablespoons demerara sugar or light brown sugar if you’re not fancy 

Preparation

1. Place all the hambrew ingredients in a stock pot or other large cooking vessel. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to medium, partially cover, and let cook for 30 minutes per pound or so. Remove from the pot, and place on a foil-lined, rimmed baking sheet to let cool for 5-10 minutes until ready to handle.

2. While meat is cooling, preheat the oven to 450 degrees, and mix together the molasses, mustard, and brown sugar. (Nigella Lawson’s recipe actually only mixes the mustard and sugar, and sprinkles it over the molasses once it’s on the ham, which…I don’t think I’ve ever done, but I might try it.)

3.  Once the meat is cool enough to handle, peel off the skin(or don’t, if you’re fine not rendering as much fat in exchange for a kind of ‘caramel pork jerky’ skin at the end) , leaving the fat behind, and score the meat and exposed fat with a diamond pattern, making about 1” wide diamonds. Poke a whole clove into every junction. Pour over glaze (or just the molasses, if going by the original recipe) and pat/rub it over the ham.

4. Roast it 10-15 minutes, until the glaze is bubbly and burnished. Remove, slice/tear, and serve.

 

Suspiciously Delicious Cabbage

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter

1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon (heaping) grated fresh ginger

1 medium green cabbage, cored and thinly sliced

3/4 cup heavy cream

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preparation

1. Melt the butter in a large skillet (with lid) over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic, and cook for about 5 minutes, until onions are softened.

2. Add ginger, and cook for one additional minute. Add the cabbage, and toss to coast. Cook, stirring infrequently, for 15-20 minutes, until cabbage has softened and caramelized.

3. Add the heavy cream, and reduce the heat to low, scraping up any fond built on the bottom of the pan. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes to allow flavors to meld.

4. Uncover, season with salt and pepper to taste, and allow to reduce for 2-3 mintues. Serve warm.