Cider soaked glazed ham.

Once I had selected ham to be the main event of the Glyndebourne picnic, I needed to decide how to cook and flavour it.

If I had to pick one method of cooking meat, it would probably be braising: the fast heat at the beginning or end giving those delicious caramel notes from the Maillard reaction; the long, low simmer in a flavour bath melting the fat and sinews until the meat falls apart.

My favourite book for these moments is Niki Segnet's The Flavour Thesaurus, which shows how 99 different flavours work together and gives skeleton recipe suggestions. It is by some distance the grubbiest book I own, testament to its many hours on my kitchen worksurface next to sizzling meat and bubbling sauces.

The flavours

On opening the "Pork" section of the Thesaurus, the first suggestion, listed alphabetically, is Pork and Anise, braised. I love anise in all its forms; from the aniseed balls poured from large glass jars in old fashioned sweet shops, to new potatoes tumbled in tarragon. Done.

What other flavours to use? Pork and Apple is a classic, and I needed a cooking liquid, so I decided to braise the meat in cider and use cider vinegar to make the glaze. I chose Henry Weston's Vintage cider: 8.2% and oak-aged, which if it had any effect I thought would work well with pork. I also have a soft spot for Weston's as they are based in the village next to my grandparents and I've visited the factory.

I needed no encouragement to "Pair pork with shameless amounts of garlic".

I happened to have juniper berries in the cupboard, and checking the combination of Pork and Juniper found Elizabeth David's recommendation for combining pork with juniper, garlic and fennel bulb. However when I got to shops I could not find fresh fennel, so I decided to use fennel seeds instead.

The ham

I had left it too late to deal with uncured ham, so I bought a 1.7kg slab of salted, unsmoked gammon from the butcher. The butcher said pre-soaking to remove the salt was optional, and I like salty ham, so I did not.

I began by browning the fat of the ham to help it render down and bring out those yummy caramel notes. This took quite a while, and I regretted impulsively cutting off the string that kept the roll together as the meat kept falling open. The meat was too heavy and unwieldy to be manipulated with tongs, so I used a tea towel to help me turn it.

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I removed the ham from the casserole and used the pork fat residue to fry crushed juniper berries and fennel seeds, a couple of red onions, a carrot and two and half bulbs of garlic, until the garlic was soft and slightly golden. A rather odd paste developed at the bottom of the pan, possibly from the juniper berries. However when I poured a little cider into the pan it all deglazed. I placed the ham on top of the vegetables and added more cider until it was around a third to half-way up the meat.

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I heated the liquid to boiling, then put the lid on the casserole and put it in the oven at 150 degrees for just under three hours, flipping the meat around half way through. I knew it was cooked when I could insert two forks and gently pull the meat apart with no pressure. I removed it from the liquid, pulled off a small piece to test with the glaze, and wrapped the ham in a double layer of tinfoil to keep the moisture in.

The glaze

I wanted to use the cooking liquid as the base for the glaze, but some adjusting would be required. For starters, it was very salty. Tasting the ham, the piney notes of juniper shone through but the fennel was barely detectable. Despite the two and a half bulbs of garlic, the flavour it had imparted to the ham was decidedly appropriate.

I fished the onion, carrot and garlic pieces out of the casserole and whizzed them up to the consistency of baby food. I sieved this mix into a clean saucepan, with a couple of ladles of the cooking liquid, some water to dilute the salt, lots of cider vinegar and caster sugar. As I wanted more anise flavour than the fennel seeds had provided, I threw in some star anise.

I brought the saucepan to a simmer, adding a little more cider vinegar to brighten the flavour, and sugar to speed up the reduction until it was dark golden, sticky and translucent. I very nearly burnt the mixture when I stopped paying attention, but caught it just in time and poured the unburnt caramel off the top into a cold bowl to stop the cooking. The star anise had done a really good job infusing the mixture, which was sweet, salty and mildly acidic with multiple layers of flavour.

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I pulled the ham into fairly large pieces, then poured the glaze over the top.

Just before taking the ham to the picnic, I shredded it and gave it all a good stir to pick up the small amount of glaze which had pooled at the bottom of the dish. I did debate leaving it in the larger chunks but gently pulling the muscle fibres apart emphasised the juicy tenderness of the meat. However I am pleased I did not shred it earlier as I think it was better freshly done.

Overall I was pleased with how the ham turned out. The meat itself had a good flavour, with the juniper giving a lovely woodsy feel and the cider providing some depth without overwhelming the taste of ham - hard to do, admittedly. It combined really well with the glaze, with the anise and cider vinegar zinging through the fat and salt.

As for improvements; I wonder whether I could have taken it out of the oven earlier, perhaps at the two hour mark. Whilst not overcooked (almost impossible with a braise), I generally prefer everything from steak to fish to vegetables to be only just done. And I could definitely have added a lot more garlic.