Sunday Dinner: Ham with Sweet Pineapple Gravy

It was a pleasantly warm day today, as all Sundays in May should be. Sunday Dinners are not much of a habit on the Farm, although they should be. And since I was thinking just that thought, I decided to make a ham, which to me is Sunday Dinner at it’s best.

To begin, a ham is selected from the many that line our freezer shelves (one of the many blessings of raising Idaho Pasture Pigs). One is selected and returned—too big—there will only be the four of us for this Sunday Dinner, and while leftovers on Monday are a must, that Par-tic-ular ham would run also into Tuesday and Wednesday. By then all are sure to be hammed out. In its place is picked a smallish ham which will do nicely.

It is placed in an enamel-coated cast iron skillet and canned sliced pineapple placed over the top and along the sides—in fact, wherever there is ham showing, a pineapple is placed there instead. And since this pineapple was of the canned variety, it comes with the added bonus of a cup of so of nice and sweet pineapple juice being left in the can. That is made even sweeter in the way of a half cup brown sugar being stirred in, along with a half teaspoon black pepper. This newly-made glaze is poured over all and the ham placed into a preheated three-hundred-and-fifty-degree oven where it roasted for two hours—just right for the type and size of ham it is. Your ham may be bigger or smaller, so your roasting times will need to be adjusted accordingly.

Once the time has passed, the juices that have accumulated on the bottom of the pan, pork and pineapple alike, are poured off into a cast iron skillet where they are set to simmer. The ham is set aside for now, and the gravy-to-be attended to. And this is how it is done: A cup of bubbling potato water is poured over the simmering juices and whisked to and fro. A(nother) cup of hot potato water is placed in a coffee mug and to it is added two tablespoons flour, which is whisked in with a fork until a smooth slurry results. This is slowly poured into the bubbling juices being whisked all the while. It will spout. It will sputter. It will become the most delicious, most delectable gravy you’re ever licked off your plate.

Once it’s nice and thick (which may take a minute or two of bubbling and stirring) the gravy is removed from the heat and the ham attended to in the way of placing the pineapple slices (which should be nice and golden and slightly charred by now) off to the side and slicing it (the ham) into thick slabs.

The said slabs are placed on a plate and topped with a pineapple slice or two and slathered with gravy. Now before you go all crazy and use that gravy all on the ham, don’t forget the mashed potatoes—they need some love, too. Oh. You didn’t make mashed potatoes? Then where did you get your potato water from is what I’m asking? Everyone knows you can’t have potato water without making mashed potatoes. I guess I should have mentioned that earlier. Well. Consider it mentioned.