Finnish Christmas Ham - Joulukinkku

I'm hoping you'll order a full back leg of pork from your butcher ( http://www.taylorsofsale.co.uk/ are great). Make up a brine, I use 5 litres of water, 500g salt and 250g sugar, warm these together until fully dissolved. You can throw some other spices etc in there (Bay leaves, cloves, mustard seeds etc) but I'm yet to be convinced they make a noticeable difference). Let the brine cool completely - this is important! Wash the leg and them completely immerse in the cold brine (if needs be make up some more brine), preferable in a plastic/non-reactive container (a plastic bucket is ideal), leave in a fridge or unheated garage for 10-14 days. It's at this point of the recipe that you realise you don't have anywhere to put it or a container big enough - that'll teach you to start a recipe without reading it all the way through!

A day before serving take it out of the brine and rinse, put it back in the container and cover with cold water. Repeat this as often as you can be bothered to, preferably at least 8 times with an hour in between each rinse. Ideally the final water shouldn't taste salty.

Preheat the oven to 100-130 C. If you've got a roasting bag then this is the time to use it.


Roast the ham for a good long while, I'd reckon on at least an hour per kilo, excluding bone. What you're looking for is an internal temperature of 65 C, you will be far better off using a probe as opposed to testing the heat with a metal skewer and guesswork.

Take the ham out of the oven and turn the oven up to 220 C. Carefully strip the outer skin off the ham and then score the fat (not the meat) in a criss-cross pattern (see piccy above).

Brush the ham with mustard, using Finnish stuff for authenticity:


Push a clove into each cross on the ham. Mix (about 50-50) fine white breadcrumbs (in fact I can't think of any situation where you'd want brown breadcrumbs) and light brown sugar. Sprinkle this mixture over the ham, where the mustard will act like glue, shake off the excess. Return the ham to the (now) blisteringly hot oven and allow the sugar/crumb to brown and get nice and crunchy, keep a weather eye on it as it can catch & burn fairly quickly.

Allow to cool slightly and carve, serve with vegetable side dishes (recipes to follow)