A baked gammon is delicious and versatile at Christmas. You can use it for the main Christmas meal – either as the main event or to help stretch out your turkey - or it can be a perfect choice for Boxing Day.  Hot or cold, it’s succulent and tasty and if you have any left, it’s great in sandwiches and in other recipes.

There are a couple of things to remember about gammon.  Firstly, it is far too salty to eat if you don’t either pre-soak the joint overnight, or as in our recipe, put the gammon joint in a large deep pan (a large stock pot or a preserving pan is ideal), cover it with water and bring it to the boil.  Then drain well, discarding the salty liquid. 

Secondly if you are going to increase the recipe to feed more people, you will need to increase the cooking time.  Cooking time (the amount of time the gammon is in the simmering liquid) is worked out by allowing 20mins for every 500g of joint.  Check if it is done by inserting a skewer into the middle of the joint – it should feel firm, not rubbery.

If you are planning to tuck into the gammon on Christmas Day or Boxing Day, you can make life easy by cooking it on Christmas Eve.  Just make sure, if it is accompanying hot food that it is at room temperature before you serve it.  And how long will it keep for?  It’s unlikely you will need to worry about that(!) but kept properly wrapped in the fridge it will be fine at least until New Year’s Eve.