CENTER-CUT HAM WITH CHEERWINE GLAZE
Ingredients:
1 ham steak, center-cut with bone in
½ bottle (6 oz) Cheerwine
About ¼ cup cranberry juice, I think
1 tbs cloves
½ to 1 tsp ground cinnamon
Recipe and The Story Behind the Dish:
There’s nothing like a good Easter ham, and yet in this time of isolation, no one needs a whole 8 pound spiral-sliced monstrosity. Least of all me. It’s possible to do something really special with the standard-variety ham slice in your grocery store, but it does involve a couple of steps. Bear in mind that this is less a recipe than it is a conceptual framework. Think of it as the Nature of Doctrine of ham recipes. The concepts behind it are as follows:
Ham is good.
Ham is improved significantly by a glaze.
A good glaze contains something sugary, something tangy, and some kind of seasoning, in ways that do not significantly add more salt.
In that spirit, you can make a lot of substitutions here. If you don’t live in a place where Cheerwine is available, you can substitute some other soda. Cherry Coke would work well. (For the uninitiated, Cheerwine is a cherry-flavored soda of North Carolina.)
For the juice, I used cranberry, because it was what I had at home. You can also use orange juice. I think the cranberry added a little ‘holiday’ flavor, satisfyingly tying Christmas to Easter, incarnation to resurrection, as part of God’s singular action for us in Jesus Christ.
Anyway, for the spices I also used what I had around, but again, the cloves and cinnamon are the culinary equivalent of singing “What Child is This” or “A Stable Lamp is Lighted” during Holy Week (which, by the way, I highly recommend). Don’t risk catching coronavirus at the store if you don’t have ground cinnamon; it’s not that important. Five spice powder would be great as a substitution.
Fire up your grill to medium-high heat. Indoors, use a grill pan; a skillet would probably be fine also.
In a small saucepan, combine Cheerwine, juice, and seasonings. Reduce over medium-high heat. Don’t let it burn or get too sticky, just let it concentrate and thicken a bit.
I generally slice the ham steak into a few pieces before cooking. This makes it easier to manage.
Put the ham on the grill or in the skillet and brush on glaze. Turn after a few minutes and repeat. Keep doing this until done, but I’m not sure how to describe ‘done’ except that it looks like the header image.
Remember that the ham is already fully cooked, so you’re just going for flavor and effect here.
Pour the rest of the Cheerwine over ice and drink it while you grill. As you do so, put on some appropriate Easter grilling music. This year, I grilled to the song “Promises” by Sanctus Real, which is based on Romans 8.
Even now, even in this time of separation, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ. And the victory and vindication of God in the resurrection of Jesus Christ reveals that truth to us, concretely and bodily.
“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.
What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
--Romans 8:28-39
