Go online and you’ll find all kinds of recipes for cooking ham steak. Now, I’m not talking about a ham roast where you bake a canned boned ham; but a ham steak, which is just a slice from a whole piece of ham which is used for roasting. Sometimes, for a weeknight dinner you don’t want a  whole ham.  So, a  smaller ham steak is the better deal and it’s more cost effective.

What I noticed for ham steaks is that most recipes call for brown sugar, vinegar, Dijon mustard and a whole lot of other stuff. And these are all well and good, and delicious. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve used these recipes a lot. But we Puerto Ricans have  a whole different way for cooking ham steaks. Different in the ingredients. The cooking method, by and large, remains the same: roasting or baking. But our ham glaze, which is the universal way of cooking a ham steak, is sweeter, and has more of a kick. We add Puerto Rican rum to it.

This recipe has been in our family for ages. We used our glaze for cooking ham roasts, ham steaks, pork roasts and, yes, even canned ham. It’s always been a hit,  never a miss. If you like ham steaks, this is it. Period.

 

JAMÓN AL VIDRIANO
(Glazed Ham steak)

Ingredients

2 boneless ham steaks (with natural juices) about 2 pounds
1 cup orange juice
1/2 cup Puerto Rican dark rum
1/4 cup honey
1 tablespoon ground ginger
Few whole cloves (5 or 6 )

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Wash ham steak under cold running water and pat dry with paper towels.
  3.  Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until syrupy, about 30 minutes.
  4.  Place ham in a baking dish, pour glaze over ham steaks, and bake until brown on both sides, about 45 minutes, turning every 15 minutes.
    Yield: 4 servings.