Jerk Ham With A Mango Orange Pineapple Rum Glaze

By Chris De La Rosa
Culinary Expert

You’ll Need…

9-10 lb ham
1 tablespoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup orange juice
1 inch piece ginger
4 scallions
4 cloves garlic
8-10 sprigs thyme
2 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1 scotch bonnet pepper
1.5 tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 cup rum

Glaze:
2 cups orange juice
1 lemon (juice)
1 can pine apple tibits (14 fl oz)
1 1/2 cup mango pieces
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon grated ginger
1/4 cup rum
zest of 1 orange

Important. If doing this recipe gluten free, please go through the entire list of ingredients to make sure they meet with your specific gluten-free dietary requirements — especially the soy sauce, which will need to be replaced with a gluten-free alternative.

I used a smoked ham leg, which had a thick, fatty skin that I removed, and I made incisions in a diamond pattern, across the ham, to allow for the marinade to get in and do its thing.

I like using a food processor to make the marinade, as I can control the texture/consistency much better this way — somewhat chunky is the goal. Pulse until you get the consistency you like. I didn’t use any salt, as I knew the smoked ham would be salty already, plus the soy sauce is loaded with sodium.

Pour the marinade over the ham and work in with your hands, so some of it goes into the incisions you made. Typically, I’d say marinate overnight, but in my case, I marinated for 30 minutes. Wash your hands, immediately after, with soap and water, as there’s scotch bonnet pepper in there.

Place into your baking dish and loosely tent with foil to cover, and put into a 350 F oven, on the middle shelf.

Now it’s time to make the mango pineapple rum glaze. In a saucepan place all the ingredients (except the orange zest) over a medium flame and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 40-45 minutes, on low. Then crush with a potato masher to thicken things up a bit. Turn off the stove and go in with the orange zest.

After about 30 minutes in the oven, I use the liquid in the pan to baste the ham, every 10-15 minutes, or so.

It will take about 10 minutes per pound, so after about 1 hour and 15 minutes, I did the following. I turned the heat up to 400 F, removed the foil, which was covering it, and put it back in the oven for another 15 minutes.

At this point, I turned my oven setting to ‘broil’ (about 500 F) and went on with my first layer of the glaze. I prefer to spoon it on, as I figured, using a brush would remove the jerk marinade, which should be cooked on at this point. In total, I glazed it 3 times.

IMPORTANT! This glaze (due to the high sugar content) can burn very easily, so do keep an eye on things. It was 3-4 minutes between each application of glaze and if you’re wondering, yes it was still on the middle rack of the oven. Feel free to serve this amazing jerk ham with any leftover glaze.

So there you go…….

This recipe is courtesy of Gourmand Award winning cookbook author and founder of CaribbeanPot.com, Chris De La Rosa. With over 450 printable recipes with step by step cooking instructions and demo videos, PLUS over 1 million social/fan connections globally every month, CaribbeanPot.com is the world’s #1 resource of Caribbean Culinary Culture. Connect with Chis on Instagram: www.instagram.com/caribbeanpot/.