Follow-up to today’s Slow Cooker Ham & Rice Experiment …
Wouldn’t it be handy if I could somehow succinctly sum-up my slow cooker ham and rice experiment — perhaps using a 1-10 score card system or a red/yellow/green-light indicator?
Well … I don’t have that … so let’s break it down in short order. Ready … GO!
The Rice
In the previous post I wrote two ways to slow cook rice. I’m going to have to try this again because my 2 parts water to 1 part rice flopped. About half of it turned to mush. I received a text from my mom about 4 hours into cooking saying that she does equal parts water and rice then cooks on high for 1 hour. OOPS! When I’ve had her slow cooker rice it’s turned out great. I’ll have to try this the next time I need rice.
The Ham
Cooking the ham for 8 hours was of course easy. When I pulled the pieces out of my 2 slow cookers the work to clean it out (remove the fat, bone, etc) was straightforward but a bit time consuming … but then at times I can be fastidious.
At the beginning of this work I took a nibble and the ham seemed to be on the bland side*. I didn’t know if this was because of the way I cooked it or if it was just a lower-salt ham**. As my ham cooled the flavour seemed to return. I suspect this happened as a result of the water I cooked it with steaming out.
Ultimately I opted to give the ham a little boost improvising a simple glaze with what I had on hand. In a 2 cup measure I started with a healthy splash of apple cider vinegar. Then I added a healthy dollop of molasses followed by a hearty sprinkling of Johnny’s Seasoning Salt, then about as much warm water as the molasses. After mixing I felt that the volume was a bit low, so I doubled everything except the vinegar. In increments I poured this around on the meat, tossed the meat, and repeated until all of my ‘glaze’ was in. I then cooked on high for another hour. It didn’t ‘glaze’ of course, but it made additional elements of flavour.
(Hindsight — I could have used a cap or two of liquid smoke as well.)
In the end, it turned out pretty tasty — not fantastic, but I think this shows promise. This is definitely worth another attempt along with some further tweaking.
(WARNING – SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION in another 3… 2…)
Well, back to work on completing my ***FIRST RECIPE BOOK***. It’s pretty close to being done!
* It made me think of the 1979 Coppola film “Apocalypse Now” when the character Jay ‘Chef’ Hicks talked about military cook training when they boiled beautiful cuts of meat — I thought my ham was destroyed.
** If you’re not familiar with how ham is cured there are 3 common ways, 2 of which use a special pink salt which gives ham its color.
Links
- Ham – Wikipedia
- Rice – Wikipedia
- Slow cooker – Wikipedia
- Fastidious | Merriam-Webster – see “fastidious Has a Disgusting Past” about 1/2 way down the page
- Apocalypse Now – Wikipedia
As for the rice, I’m doing my mom’s trick in my small cooker — usual 2-1 ratio of water to rice and let it go all day (note that this cooker only cooks on one temp which I believe is high). Believe it or not I think this is the first time I’ve all 3 of my slow cookers going at once!