The tra­di­tional Finnish Christmas ham, this is not exactly fast food as you need to plan about a week ahead to make this but it’s not that dif­fi­cult and the end res­ult is excel­lent. The rye crust keeps the ham moist, giv­ing you a won­der­fully soft, juicy joint.

Preparation time: 1 week + 1 day + 20 min
Cooking time: ~ 2–4 hours depend­ing on size of ham
Serves: A 3kg ham will serve 5–8 people

Ingredients

• Leg of pork (the example uses a 3kg piece but you can also use a smal­ler piece or a whole leg)

Brine:

• 1–2 Bay leaves
• half dozen whole Black Peppercorns
• half dozen whole All Spice Berries
• salt (100g per litre of water)
• sugar (50g per litre)
• water (enough to cover leg of pork completely)

Baking Crust:

• 500g — 1 kg Rye Flour (you could use some other, low-gluten flour if you can’t get rye, per­haps try sorghum or gram flour)
• water
• You will also need a large bowl or bucket, big enough to hold the leg of pork and small enough to fit in your fridge
• A roast­ing ther­mo­meter makes the ham easier to cook as it takes all guess-work out of the cook­ing time

Finishing Crust:

• 2 tbs mustard
• 1 egg yolk
• dry bread crumbs
• whole cloves

Method

Salting:

1. Pour enough water to com­pletely cover the pork into a sauce­pan. (This will depend on the size of your leg of pork and your bucket, so just estim­ate it roughly)
2. Add all the ingredi­ents for the brine into the water.
3. Bring to the boil and stir until the salt and sugar have com­pletely dissolved.
4. Set aside to cool.
5. Once the brine has cooled to room temprer­at­ure place the leg of pork in a bucket and pour the brine over it to com­pletely cover it.
6. If your estim­ate of the amount of water needed was off a little you can either make more brine, or just top up with water.
7. The pork will float to the sur­face so cover it using a plate weighted by, for example, a brick wrapped in plastic to keep it below the surface.
8. Place in the fridge and allow to cure for between 4 and 7 days

Baking:

1. Remove the ham from the brine about an hour before you intend to bake it to allow it to warm up a bit, ideally the internal tem­per­at­ure should be around 10°C when you put it in the oven
2. Preheat the oven to 180°C
3. Meanwhile, make the rye dough crust by mix­ing the rye flour with water to make a stiff, but slightly sticky dough. The amount of dough you’ll need will depend on the size of the ham so mix up a batch and if you run out, make more.
4. Make a base from the dough big enough for the pork on a bak­ing tray. (Covering the tray in tin foil makes get­ting the dough off when you’re done easier.)
5. Pat the meat dry with some kit­chen roll and place onto the dough base
6. Cover the pork in the dough, about 5mm thick, start­ing at the base and work­ing your way up and around. The dough will be easier to work if you wet your hands periodically
7. Once the entire ham is covered by dough, check for any cracks, then place the roast­ing ther­mo­meter in the thick­est part of the leg, but not touch­ing the bone.
8. Place in the oven and cook until the internal tem­per­at­ure reaches 80°C or for approx­im­ately 1.5 hours for the first kilo­gram and 1 hour more for every addi­tional kilogram.

Finishing:

1. Allow the pork to cool com­pletely, ideally overnight
2. Preheat the oven to 200°C
3. Remove the dough crust and care­fully lift the ham onto a plate or chop­ping board (the meat will be very soft so it will fall appart easily)
4. Remove the skin and most of the fat under the skin
5. Mix together the mus­tard and egg yolk until uni­formly combined
6. Using a pastry brush, brush the ham lib­er­ally in the mustard-egg mixture
7. Dust with bread crumbs.
8. Decorate with rows of whole cloves pressed into the ham, this is easier if you use a skewer to make a hole for each clove first
9. Lift care­fully onto a bak­ing tray.
10. Bake in the oven until the crust takes on a golden brown col­our. Be sure to watch it as it burns very easily

(images ©Markus Korhonen, 2009)