Sweden – Julskinka (Christmas ham)

Julskinka (Christmas ham)

When looking for a dish we could do for our stop in Sweden, we pondered over several options, but let’s be serious, which dish says more “feature of the month of April” than a good old Christmas ham? Well…probably a lot of them, but who says that it can only be done for Christmas? Exactly.

The first dish that had come to mind was meatballs, but they were maybe a little cliche, then we looked at pyttipanna, which is kind of a Swedish hash, but then Valerie found a great blog (Anne’s Food, by a blogger in Stockholm, Sweden) and saw a recipe for a breadcrumb crusted ham and remembered that we had a block of ham sitting at the bottom of our freezer for a while, so almost perfect to a) cook something Swedish and b) make use of the ham, Christmas ham in March it was! Since it was not cooked, we at first had it thaw for several days, then boiled it for a few hours to make sure that it was fully done. I do not have any photos of these two parts, so please imagine a) a solid frozen ham and b) a big pot with water, with said ham cooking in it. Exciting times!

While the ham was cooling off in its pot (obviously drained), we started to prepare our side – Hasselback potatoes (the recipe for which Valerie also found on the Anne’s Food blog) and while they were roasting, it was time to prep the ham in one of those soft-ish aluminum trays. First off trimming as much fat as possible, since that is definitely NOT something you’d want to bite into, then mixing the mustard (we unfortunately could not find the hot and sweet grainy kind, so we had to settle for a medium, non-sweet one) and the egg.

Getting ready to put on the mustard/egg mixture.

Let's baste this ham!

Now Nico had his big entry, at first brushing the mixture onto the ham…

Let's load up on those breadcrumbs!

The recipe called for "lots of breadcrumbs", no?

…and then generously dumping breadcrumb on top of it, after which I padded it down as much as I could and covered what he had not been able to.

The ham is ready to go into the oven.

The oven’s been preheating on 425F (for a change we left it at what the recipe called for) and kept an eye on it after 10 minutes and every 5 minutes after, until we figured it was done.

Our finished Swedish meal

All that was now left was to put the potatoes on the plates, cut one or two slices of ham and crack open a can of creamed corn (not necessarily typically Swedish, more something Canadian, but it just fits so well ) and we were good to go! Nico didn’t want anything to do with the ham, but after some reservations enjoyed the potatoes, while the ham per se was a success with both Valerie and I, but since she has never been a big fan of mustard to begin with and the grainy mustard being fairly strong, the crust part was a no-go after the first forkful, she did try, though, so kudos to her

Please check out our partner blogs and their Sweden ideas: Adventures In Mommydom, Creative Family Fun, Glittering Muffins, Juggling with Kids, Kitchen Counter Chronicles, Make, Do & Friends, Mom 2 Posh Little Divas, Mummymummymum, Rainy Day Mum, Red Ted Art, The Educators’ Spin On It and The Outlaw Mom!

If you do this, we’d LOVE to see a photo of it. Email it to us or post it on our Facebook page. We’d love to do a Facebook album, a Pinterest board and a page of your creations

Please link up your Sweden dish and/or craft in our linky below, we would love to see it!

 
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