Instant Smoked Ham
The flavor of smoke always takes me back to my gnoll life, but like any big ol' hunk of meat, it's appropriate for a variety of therianthropic diets, too!
These types of ham shank roasts are usually sold pre-smoked and cooked, at least in America, which makes them a very forgiving roast, especially if you're not comfortable with raw meat. This one is flavored with maple syrup, pineapple, and smoked paprika -- three flavors that may not sound delicious together, but they're amazing together. Cooking it in an electronic pressure cooker helps keep it moist.
Because I can only buy and eat so much ham, I've only tested this for an approximately 6lb non-spiral-cut bone-in ham. A larger ham probably won't fit in an electronic pressure cooker, and may be undercooked; a smaller ham may overcook. Don't substitute the canned pineapple for fresh, as it contains more of the enzyme that softens meat. However, you can substitute it for crushed or chunk canned pineapple in juice instead.
For the sweet gravy, I used Clear-Jel. Often used for canning, this starch is more consistent across temperatures and whisks in more evenly. If you're using the instant-type, you can even skip making the slurry and add it directly. However, corn starch works too.
Ingredients for ham roast
1 non-spiral-cut, bone-in ham, approximately 6 lb
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 20-oz cans pineapple tidbits in juice. Cans in syrup will not work.
2 tbsp smoked paprika
Ingredients to make sweet ham gravy (optional)
5 tbsp Clear-Jel/Sure-Jel, or corn starch
1/4 cup cold water
Special equipment
6 or 8 qt multifunction electronic pressure cooker, such as an Instant Pot
Silicone trivet for Instant Pot
Serves: 6
Directions:
Set pressure cooker to Saute mode and allow it to heat.
Once the pressure cooker has come to heat, sear the ham on each side for about a minute each.
Remove ham from pot. Add canned pineapple, then place the trivet in the pot.
Pat the ham with smoked paprika, then place it on top of the trivet and pour the maple syrup on top.
Pressure cook on high for 17 minutes.
Allow natural pressure release for at least 25 minutes. Longer won't hurt, if you have other things to do in the meantime.
Remove ham.
If making gravy, whisk together clearjel/corn starch and cold water to make a slurry. Clearjel makes a thicker, gooey, clear slurry - this is normal.
Set pressure cooker to Saute again. Add slurry to ham drippings and pineapple, and allow to heat, stirring occasionally, until thickened. The large quantity of pineapple juice leads to a very thick, sweet gravy, good on biscuits.
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We see Hannibal feed Will soup, but I firmly believe that he would never eat it himself, even if he was the one who made it. The sort of trauma he faced when he was a child doesn't go away, and we have already seen that his trauma does, in fact, affect the way he eats. But that also begs consideration to the thought of what Hannibal was thinking when he served Will that chicken soup.
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Something that strikes me as I'm planning on hosting some visiting relatives (BTW if I have any New Zealand followers can you please reblog or comment with details about what type of tea is considered standard or a little better than average in New Zealand?) is how much comfort and joy I've given vegetarian and vegan travelers in the past by just serving them some good tasty normal calorie levels vegetarian/vegan food, as unfortunately that can be hard to come by as a traveler in the US and so several of the people I've hosted were obviously running a calorie deficit because they were struggling to find enough food suitable to their diet.
And, I am not vegetarian! I'm low-key ideologically Not vegetarian! But I also believe that 1. It's immoral to intentionally trick someone else into violating their own morals even if you don't share them and 2. Hospitality means serving people good food that they like and can eat.
I've gotten a lot of shocked responses from people in the past when I would say something like, "This recipe can be made vegetarian/vegan if you swap the meat broth with vegetable broth/swap the cheese for vegan cheese or omit it" and then they'd assume that I must be vegetarian/vegan myself, and not understand why I would care about tracking which recipes could be vegetarian or consider it a valuable thing. Other people have dietary restrictions and sometimes I want to make them something nice to eat! It's shitty hosting to invite someone to Thanksgiving and then have like two things out of twenty they can eat, you know?
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Carrot salad and Guinness stew at an Irish pub! Both were nice, but have you ever had potato sticks in carrot salad? It is absurdly good! Possibly life-changing.
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My favorite local mexican joint is closed for renovations, so I am making do. Also I need to find ways to use all this cilantro I'm growing. I used canned refried beans because it's a tuesday night and I refuse to exert myself, and because I am out of sour cream to thicken them with I stuck a big spoonful of the dill-ranch cucumber spread (which is what I used up the sour cream making) and tbh it's...super good??? I did not expect that to actually pan out.
Also no one is allowed to judge me for the number of limes. I love limes. I will literally squeeze a lime onto a taco and then eat it like I'm taking shots, with bites of lime between bites of taco. I will eat limes whole with little to no provocation.
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Watching Alone really drives home the low success rates of a single human hunter and makes you appreciate the value of food that can't run away.
It's also a really good example of how hunter gatherer subsistence works.
If you leave 10 humans in the environment with limited resources and no contact or rescue party, 9 of them will be dead in 90 days.all of them will be dead in a little over 100 days.
Even with 2 people, starvation tends to set in after a couple months.
And yeah, people from hunter gatherer cultures they'd probably be better at this than a bunch of Americans who do it as a side hustle, but there's only so much one person can do in one day. It's almost never enough.
It's too much for one human to collect enough berries to have vitamin c through the winter. It's too much for one human to hunt and process enough big game regularly to feed themselves. it's too much for one human to build an insulated home and then monitor their heat source to keep that home from catching fire.
It's too much to make and use sharp tools without injuring yourself, and it's too much to try and do all the work hurt if you do. It's too much to go out and find more food when your inability to find safe food made you sick.
On the other hand, if you put 10 people out in the environment together with limited resources and occasional contact with other small groups, you'd have a community that could last indefinitely.
For all that we glorify stories of the lone individual against the environment, it very much isn't how we evolved to survive.
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