Hamming it up on Easter

It's Easter and many of you will be preparing meals for your family. Hopefully they will be Yummy. However my experience has been that people spend a lot of time on the sides and leave the ham to some third party.

Now this may seem like a good idea since-how much can you screw up ham-but I have tasted some pretty bad hams in my day (and I am not talking former BF's here). So many things can go wrong with the wrong ham (in this case I am talking former BF's-haha)

Ham's can be turned into some pretty ethereal things -think Prosciutto. Or they can be very lackluster-think packaged deli ham. Same meat-different process. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't (again back to the ex BF's-but I digress)

So in honor of the "hammiest time of year" (yes, that was a play on holiest), I will let you in on some ham testing (again with the old BF's-I have to stop this!). Seriously:

My favorite food publication is Cook's Illustrated. Their guidance is invaluable. So for Easter I am going to share their taste test results for Ham. IF you haven't bought your ham yet-I would suggest listening to them as they are very scientific about their taste tests and product comparisons. They have never let me down.

They have a great website called America's Test Kitchen that you can subscribe to for $29.95/yr. May sound pricey-but they have incredible hot to video's on just about any topic and they do these great product comparisons that you can trust since they take NO advertising dollars!


Recommended

Cook's Spiral Sliced Hickory Smoked Bone-In Honey Ham
Nearly every taster praised the "nice balance of smoke and salt" and "genuine ham flavor."
$3.29 per pound

Not Recommended

Carando Honey-Cured Spiral Sliced Ham
The thickly-sliced ham earned high marks for its "deep, smoky flavor," but tasters criticized the meat as "too wet" and "too sweet."
$2.99 per pound

Not Recommended

Hillshire Farm Bone-In Brown Sugar Cured Ham (Spiral-Sliced Ham)
This ham lost points on two accounts: Tasters described the meat as "utterly devoid of smoke flavor" and "spongy and cottony," and no one liked the "sweet, gummy" glaze applied at the factory.

Wishing you and your families the tastiest of Easter's.