Ham-induced anxiety
December 22, 2015 3:51 PM Subscribe
I am cooking Christmas dinner and may have bought the wrong kind of ham/pork. But maybe not? Either way, I need different cooking times than I first expected. Can the meat-experts of the green help me out?
My mother, who has been at the hospital almost 24/7 for a week taking care of my grandmother (the hospital is awful, but it's Catholic so my grandma won't go elsewhere, even though they'd just let her die without my mom there to take over when the nurses ignore her), was going to cancel Christmas dinner. I offered to cook instead so she could just come home in time for dinner and then leave again right after, and I've invited some no-drama family as a surprise. Crazy-making as it is, I'm trying to make this Christmas as perfect as possible, even if it's just for a couple hours.
So I found this great recipe for a home-made Christmas ham. I then went to the butcher today and asked how much ham I'd need for 8 people, none of whom are light eaters, with lots of leftovers (so my diet-restricted mom has something to eat at the hospital where everything is contaminated with gluten). I walked out with a ten-pound slab of meat, excited and optimistic and naive. I noticed when I went to put it in the fridge at home that it's labeled "Boston Pork Butt," and not something like "cured pork" or similar. This triggered all kinds of anxiety. Is this not the right thing? A quick Google doesn't give a straight answer, and poking a little deeper leads to a variety of "Backyard BBQ" forums and articles, which aren't really what I'm looking for.
I expected to boil this, score it, stick some cloves on, roast/baste it, and produce for my mom a wonderful home-cooked surprise. But I'm thinking that A - I might not even have the right kind of meat (cue panicked whimper; I can't afford to buy another) and B - I will have to cook it considerably longer than the recipe suggests; which is fine, except I have no idea how long/what to look for. I'm a pretty good cook with chicken breast, fish, and all kinds of veggies, but this is outside my realm of experience.
Can someone give me instruction, or is there a particular book/website/etcetera I can look at? I've seen this thread but it seems to be referring to something slightly different than what I have? Or do I have basically the same thing they do, except with a bone in (and am I similarly boned; pun intended)?
My mother, who has been at the hospital almost 24/7 for a week taking care of my grandmother (the hospital is awful, but it's Catholic so my grandma won't go elsewhere, even though they'd just let her die without my mom there to take over when the nurses ignore her), was going to cancel Christmas dinner. I offered to cook instead so she could just come home in time for dinner and then leave again right after, and I've invited some no-drama family as a surprise. Crazy-making as it is, I'm trying to make this Christmas as perfect as possible, even if it's just for a couple hours.
So I found this great recipe for a home-made Christmas ham. I then went to the butcher today and asked how much ham I'd need for 8 people, none of whom are light eaters, with lots of leftovers (so my diet-restricted mom has something to eat at the hospital where everything is contaminated with gluten). I walked out with a ten-pound slab of meat, excited and optimistic and naive. I noticed when I went to put it in the fridge at home that it's labeled "Boston Pork Butt," and not something like "cured pork" or similar. This triggered all kinds of anxiety. Is this not the right thing? A quick Google doesn't give a straight answer, and poking a little deeper leads to a variety of "Backyard BBQ" forums and articles, which aren't really what I'm looking for.
I expected to boil this, score it, stick some cloves on, roast/baste it, and produce for my mom a wonderful home-cooked surprise. But I'm thinking that A - I might not even have the right kind of meat (cue panicked whimper; I can't afford to buy another) and B - I will have to cook it considerably longer than the recipe suggests; which is fine, except I have no idea how long/what to look for. I'm a pretty good cook with chicken breast, fish, and all kinds of veggies, but this is outside my realm of experience.
Can someone give me instruction, or is there a particular book/website/etcetera I can look at? I've seen this thread but it seems to be referring to something slightly different than what I have? Or do I have basically the same thing they do, except with a bone in (and am I similarly boned; pun intended)?
You didn't pick up ham, but guess what, you picked up one of my favorite cuts of pork ever. With sufficient time to cook, this is one of the most forgiving roasts (very hard to overcook - just start early, as in most cases low and slow is better).
Slow roasted, the boston butt is great for pulling for carnitas, pulled pork, and as the famous Bo Ssam.
If none of those are christmasy enough for you, then you can roast it whole, in addition to suprecres' suggestion, note that Boston Butt is a traditional christmas pork roast served in Puerto Rico as "Pernil Al Horno" and will perform wonderfully in that role.
For a pork butt of the size you have, you'll want to plan for it to cook it for at least 6-8 hours. I've done this overnight in the oven before a big holiday meal and that's usually saved a lot of time and stress, with a final reheating an hour before the meal. A meat thermometer will help a lot here.
Relax! You did great and your christmas will be wonderful with possibly a new tradition that you're going to introduce.
posted by Karaage at 4:08 PM on December 22, 2015 [15 favorites]
Slow roasted, the boston butt is great for pulling for carnitas, pulled pork, and as the famous Bo Ssam.
If none of those are christmasy enough for you, then you can roast it whole, in addition to suprecres' suggestion, note that Boston Butt is a traditional christmas pork roast served in Puerto Rico as "Pernil Al Horno" and will perform wonderfully in that role.
For a pork butt of the size you have, you'll want to plan for it to cook it for at least 6-8 hours. I've done this overnight in the oven before a big holiday meal and that's usually saved a lot of time and stress, with a final reheating an hour before the meal. A meat thermometer will help a lot here.
Relax! You did great and your christmas will be wonderful with possibly a new tradition that you're going to introduce.
posted by Karaage at 4:08 PM on December 22, 2015 [15 favorites]
Yes, apologies for my brevity. I also like what you picked up a whole lot more than I like ham-- call it a happy accident. I'm sure it will be great, and there's a reason that the previous thread you linked also linked to the Food Lab roasted shoulder. Enjoy!
posted by supercres at 4:13 PM on December 22, 2015
posted by supercres at 4:13 PM on December 22, 2015
Pernil is a classic Christmas Roast in some families, and it's easy! Rejoice at you good fortune!!
posted by jbenben at 4:14 PM on December 22, 2015
posted by jbenben at 4:14 PM on December 22, 2015
You have a pork roast and not a ham. Here are the most basic cooking instructions.
posted by DarlingBri at 4:16 PM on December 22, 2015
posted by DarlingBri at 4:16 PM on December 22, 2015
Just another voice chiming in that this is a fantastic cut and it's very forgiving to cook. I like it waaaay better than ham and you can't go wrong with the recipes already posted above.
posted by quince at 4:28 PM on December 22, 2015
posted by quince at 4:28 PM on December 22, 2015
Best answer: I might not even have the right kind of meat (cue panicked whimper; I can't afford to buy another)
If you told the butcher that you wanted "ham" and they gave you pork butt, I really think you should first see if you can return it and exchange it for what you actually ordered. Even if the butcher doesn't normally accept returns, they seriously fucked up here and they should fix this. I'm pretty perplexed how a butcher could make a mistake like this. Ham like you have at Christmas and pork butt are such entirely different cuts that they may as well be from different animal. I love pork butt, but not if I'm expecting ham. Both are tasty but they aren't interchangeable.
posted by gatorae at 5:49 PM on December 22, 2015 [20 favorites]
If you told the butcher that you wanted "ham" and they gave you pork butt, I really think you should first see if you can return it and exchange it for what you actually ordered. Even if the butcher doesn't normally accept returns, they seriously fucked up here and they should fix this. I'm pretty perplexed how a butcher could make a mistake like this. Ham like you have at Christmas and pork butt are such entirely different cuts that they may as well be from different animal. I love pork butt, but not if I'm expecting ham. Both are tasty but they aren't interchangeable.
posted by gatorae at 5:49 PM on December 22, 2015 [20 favorites]
Season as you like, cook for 12 or more hours at 250 degrees and you will have deliciousness a'plenty. Goes great with sweet potatoes, potatoes au gratin, baked apples. Or rice, black beans and sweet plantains.
Enjoy your yumminess!
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 5:51 PM on December 22, 2015
Enjoy your yumminess!
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 5:51 PM on December 22, 2015
Don't worry. Just act like you bought that wonderful roast on purpose. Pork butt is ridiculously easy to cook and also ridiculously delicious. Call it an uncured ham if you want, but everybody's going to love it whatever you call it. It will take 10 hours. If you're going to eat in the afternoon just set your alarm for whatever time in the night -- it's so easy to do this that you'll be glad you interrupted your sleep.
Here's how I cook it: put it on a rack in a roasting pan or on a rimmed cookie sheet. Those disposable aluminum pan at the super market are fine; use two together for added sturdiness. If you have no rack, you can scrunch up aluminum foil wads to keep the meat out of the liquid in the pan.
Preheat the oven to 300. Pour a quart or so of water into the pan below the pork, and put in oven. You will need to add more water from time to time; the water is there to keep the meat moist. Cook for one hour per pound. After that, a lot of the meat will be tender enough to pull apart with a couple of forks. The parts that need to be sliced with a knife will also be very tender. You can serve it right away or leave it to set even for an hour or more.
You can serve it with just salt and pepper. Regular store-bought barbecue sauce is fine. Some people like mustard or a mustard-based barbecue sauce. Others like an acidic sauce. I mix cider vinegar with red pepper flakes and enough sugar to balance the acid; it takes a LOT of sugar to do this. If some guests don't like hot food, just the vinegar/sugar mixture is delicious.
I like to offer small dinner rolls so people can make little sandwiches. It's also handy to have plenty of other filling food because guests will eat more than their fill of the pork because it's so good.
You definitely don't need gravy, but if you want some, ask someone else in the family to make it.
posted by wryly at 7:08 PM on December 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
Here's how I cook it: put it on a rack in a roasting pan or on a rimmed cookie sheet. Those disposable aluminum pan at the super market are fine; use two together for added sturdiness. If you have no rack, you can scrunch up aluminum foil wads to keep the meat out of the liquid in the pan.
Preheat the oven to 300. Pour a quart or so of water into the pan below the pork, and put in oven. You will need to add more water from time to time; the water is there to keep the meat moist. Cook for one hour per pound. After that, a lot of the meat will be tender enough to pull apart with a couple of forks. The parts that need to be sliced with a knife will also be very tender. You can serve it right away or leave it to set even for an hour or more.
You can serve it with just salt and pepper. Regular store-bought barbecue sauce is fine. Some people like mustard or a mustard-based barbecue sauce. Others like an acidic sauce. I mix cider vinegar with red pepper flakes and enough sugar to balance the acid; it takes a LOT of sugar to do this. If some guests don't like hot food, just the vinegar/sugar mixture is delicious.
I like to offer small dinner rolls so people can make little sandwiches. It's also handy to have plenty of other filling food because guests will eat more than their fill of the pork because it's so good.
You definitely don't need gravy, but if you want some, ask someone else in the family to make it.
posted by wryly at 7:08 PM on December 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm delighted that my family's doing pork shoulder this year instead of ham, so maybe yours will be too.
What'd I do is debone it and then use this cider-braised recipe. Since yours is bigger it'll take longer. If you tie the deboned shoulder real tight with twine, you'll end up with a very sliceable roast, as opposed to a more pulled pork sort of thing. I like to serve it with apples and onions (which is conveniently the next recipe and also included in Google Books). Mmmm.
Whatever you end up doing, I'm sure it'll be a great meal that brings your family some much-needed peace and comfort. I'm sending good thoughts to y'all - that sounds like a tough situation, especially around the holidays.
posted by radiomayonnaise at 7:49 PM on December 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
What'd I do is debone it and then use this cider-braised recipe. Since yours is bigger it'll take longer. If you tie the deboned shoulder real tight with twine, you'll end up with a very sliceable roast, as opposed to a more pulled pork sort of thing. I like to serve it with apples and onions (which is conveniently the next recipe and also included in Google Books). Mmmm.
Whatever you end up doing, I'm sure it'll be a great meal that brings your family some much-needed peace and comfort. I'm sending good thoughts to y'all - that sounds like a tough situation, especially around the holidays.
posted by radiomayonnaise at 7:49 PM on December 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: OK, just another thought -- can you call and confirm with the butcher that the label is right?
As noted above, mistaking an uncured front leg roast for a cured back leg ham is a rather serious error on the part of a butcher. But printing the wrong label from the scale? Ridiculously easy to do. (I once bought a pound of baloney that was erroneously labeled and priced as prosciutto!)
Agree with everyone above that having a roast would be a happy accident. But before you change your cooking plans, please just make sure WHICH mistake was made.
posted by peakcomm at 9:30 PM on December 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
As noted above, mistaking an uncured front leg roast for a cured back leg ham is a rather serious error on the part of a butcher. But printing the wrong label from the scale? Ridiculously easy to do. (I once bought a pound of baloney that was erroneously labeled and priced as prosciutto!)
Agree with everyone above that having a roast would be a happy accident. But before you change your cooking plans, please just make sure WHICH mistake was made.
posted by peakcomm at 9:30 PM on December 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
Best answer: Agreed that a picture would help but I also wanted to add that the search term you're looking for to find recipes is "fresh ham" - those will work regardless of whether you have a front or back leg (and will taste better than traditional processed hams anyhow, as others have noted).
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 4:17 AM on December 23, 2015
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 4:17 AM on December 23, 2015
If you are nervous about the timing on the cooking of your different-than-ham, but still delicious pork butt/shoulder, you can cook it the day before and reheat it on the day of serving. It will give the flavors time to meld and you can remove some of the additional fat that the roast will give off- which is much easier to do when it's been refrigerated.
posted by sarajane at 4:34 AM on December 23, 2015
posted by sarajane at 4:34 AM on December 23, 2015
Best answer: To me, this is not a culinary problem but a family expectations problem. I agree that pork butt is a delicious roast and delicious for shredded pork dishes, but it is not a ham and is not what you or your family is looking for at all. Do get in touch with the butcher, explain the problem, and attempt to take it back. Especially with all that family stress going on, now is not the time to experiment with unusual new dishes. Folks that want to find solace in the tradition of Christmas ham with cloves and glaze, followed by cold slices of said ham for sandwiches on white bread for days followed by weeks of diced ham in omelettes, mac and cheese and anywhere else you can squeeze it in, followed by a soup bone that is a base for bean soups for weeks and months to come - those folks do not want to eat a pork roast or carnitas. It will not be reassuring and familiar.
You were told the wrong thing, it was an egregious customer service failure that any butcher would be embarrassed to make, and you're entitled to return it and get what you want.
If that proves too difficult (it should't, but if it's a big deal), freeze the Boston butt for now and go to your nearest grocery store and pick up a wrapped, cured, cooked ham from the meat section cooler for under $20. These are perfectly serviceable and likely to scratch the "Christmas ham" itch a lot better than serving pork roast. All you need to do with those is heat them through and perhaps glaze them. The spiral-cut ones are really delicious. It doesn't have to be hard; this time of year is already crazy, and that's one way you could up the sanity quotient and still achieve the "ham" goal.
posted by Miko at 5:58 AM on December 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
You were told the wrong thing, it was an egregious customer service failure that any butcher would be embarrassed to make, and you're entitled to return it and get what you want.
If that proves too difficult (it should't, but if it's a big deal), freeze the Boston butt for now and go to your nearest grocery store and pick up a wrapped, cured, cooked ham from the meat section cooler for under $20. These are perfectly serviceable and likely to scratch the "Christmas ham" itch a lot better than serving pork roast. All you need to do with those is heat them through and perhaps glaze them. The spiral-cut ones are really delicious. It doesn't have to be hard; this time of year is already crazy, and that's one way you could up the sanity quotient and still achieve the "ham" goal.
posted by Miko at 5:58 AM on December 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
Best answer: I've made a fresh ham before for an easter get together. It's delicious and more similar in feeling to the traditional ham than a pork roast/carnitas/pulled pork that your cut is more associated with (though those are equally delicious).
I'd vote for a fresh ham recipe if indeed its the wrong cut and not the wrong label...
posted by newpotato at 7:41 AM on December 23, 2015
I'd vote for a fresh ham recipe if indeed its the wrong cut and not the wrong label...
posted by newpotato at 7:41 AM on December 23, 2015
Response by poster: I called the butcher, and what I was given was a fresh ham; he rang it up under a different label because he didn't have a "fresh ham" label in the system. Crisis averted, I think.
posted by Urban Winter at 2:44 PM on December 23, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Urban Winter at 2:44 PM on December 23, 2015 [5 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
Don't boil it. Cook it like this, especially if it's skin-on and bone-in.
posted by supercres at 3:54 PM on December 22, 2015 [9 favorites]