Home › Planked Dinners and Grills › Planked Ham with Vegetables
Planked Ham with Vegetables
1 slice ham, 2 ins. thick 8 medium sized potatoes 1 can asparagus 1 bunch new carrots 2 cans peas Cover ham with cold water, bring to boil, then simmer for 40 minutes. Drain and place on plank. Stick whole cloves around edge. Brown in oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove from oven, add a border of mashed potatoes, garnishing with the peas and carrots alternating, with the stalks of asparagus separating them. Spread vegetables with melted butter, return plank to oven until potatoes are browned.
A complete dinner served on a hardwood plank, built around a thick ham steak. The parboiling step is the part that no longer makes sense with supermarket ham.
- The plank itselfUse an untreated hardwood plank (oak or maple) sold for baking, rubbed with oil and heated empty in the oven before food goes on it. Do not soak it as you would a grilling plank, and keep it on a sheet pan so scorched edges do not smoke up the oven; a plank used at 350F will darken but should not char through.
- Skip the 40-minute simmerThat step both cooked the thick slice through and helped draw salt out of a dry-cured ham. A modern wet-cured ham steak is usually mild and already fully cooked; if the label says so, go straight to the plank and heat it through, about 20 to 25 minutes at 350F, to an internal 140F. A steak marked cook-before-eating still needs cooking right through.
- If it is a real country hamGenuine dry-cured ham, still sold in the South, does need the long simmer the recipe gives (there is no separate soak in the original). Taste the cooking water after 20 minutes; if it is still aggressively salty, change it and continue.
- ClovesWhole cloves stuck around the edge are decorative and strongly flavoured. A dozen is plenty for a single slice, and they should be pulled out before serving rather than eaten.
- The potato borderThe mashed potato must be stiff enough to hold a piped shape — drain the potatoes well, dry them over low heat, and use butter and an egg yolk rather than milk. Slack mash will slump across the plank in the oven.
- Canned vegetablesTwo cans of peas and one of asparagus reflect the stocking habits of the period. Frozen peas and fresh asparagus, both cooked briefly and shocked, hold their colour far better in the final browning; drain and pat dry so they do not steam the potato border.
- Final browningEight to ten minutes at 350F will set the potatoes; if they are still pale, a minute under the broiler finishes them. Watch the plank at that point, as it sits close to the element.
- YieldA 2-inch slice of ham with this much garnish serves six generously, and the plank goes to the table as the serving dish.