This Southern Entertaining Tradition Will Make Your Next Party a Hit
In the South, it's not a party without a ham.
The signs of a good party are universal. A guest list that includes dear friends plus a few folks you’ve wanted to get to know better. Music that pairs nicely with laughter and is just loud enough to give the room a little energy. A hug and a coat rack at the entrance, and a drink in your hand soon after.
And, if you want to guarantee a good time, you need a ham. It can just be a simple spiral ham, served with a mountain of tiny biscuits and a bowl of mustard. If you are from the South or have spent some time there, then bless your heart, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Ham and biscuits have been part of the food culture there for hundreds of years, since enslaved Africans ate biscuits filled with sliced salt pork. These days, old-school Southerners will still offer up a salty country ham with beaten biscuits.
Related: How Working as a Caterer Changed How We Entertain at Home
Whether the ham is salted or glazed, that moment when you look across the room and spot a ham on the buffet is glorious. The ham is free of showboating and grand culinary ambition, but you know you will eat well.
Serving ham and biscuits sends other messages, that you are welcome and to make yourself at home. It’s celebratory and comforting at the same time, welcome at anything from a holiday party to a post-funeral wake. If you don’t know anyone at the party, park yourself in front of the ham and biscuits and you’ll make friends. My friend John calls it the porcine water cooler. Everyone stops by, lured by the glistening ham and the prospect of a quickly snatched biscuit smeared with mustard.
Ham and biscuits might be the anchor of the buffet table, but the components are pretty simple and easy to pull together. I like a brown sugar glazed ham, tiny rolled biscuits that split easily, and a few sauces — mustard, pepper jam, fig jam, and mostarda are all good options. You can even purchase everything and just set up a station: ham, biscuits, an assortment of mustards and chutneys. Have a few forks on hand for splitting biscuits in half and Or, of course, you can bake your own ham and biscuits; we have recipes to get you started. Just make sure you have enough for the late-night stragglers — and some for a post-party breakfast the next day.
Apple Cider Glazed Ham
Pulling off an impressive holiday ham at home takes just a few simple steps. Start with a good-quality, bone-in spiral-cut ham, making sure it is unglazed. Coat it with this deliciously sweet apple cider glaze featuring light brown sugar, honey, and Dijon mustard. Brushing the glaze onto the ham in 15-minute intervals during the last 30 minutes of baking creates a wonderfully sticky and caramelized crust. Serve any leftovers on biscuits with a slather of mustard.
Two-Bite Parmesan Biscuits
These biscuits are baked on a bed of grated Parmesan cheese, resulting in a crispy, cheesy crust around the bottom of each biscuit. Perfect on their own, try them drizzled with a bit of honey, or improvise by tossing a few handfuls of fresh thyme or chives into the dough to take them over the top. The dough can be prepped and frozen, making these an easy addition to a festive bread basket or for sandwiching a holiday ham.
Saba and Dijon-Glazed Ham
Switch up the traditional sugar-crusted holiday ham by using saba, a sweet and slightly acidic syrup made from cooked-down grape must, which is similar to aged balsamic.
Spiced Brown Sugar Ham with Apple Jus
The secret to this super-tender ham is keeping it wrapped in foil while it’s cooking and resting, letting it reabsorb any moisture released during the cooking process.
Carla Hall's Buttermilk Biscuits
Made with a combination of grated cold butter for flavor and vegetable shortening for tenderness, Carla Hall's biscuits owe their towering, flaky layers to her classic laminating technique.
Guinness-Glazed Ham
A simple glaze of dark stout and brown sugar develops a malty, caramel-like bittersweetness in the oven. Irish ham is a bit less salty than American ham and has a thin layer of fat, which absorbs the flavors of the glaze.
Buttery Buttermilk Biscuits
For these exquisitely flaky biscuits, make sure to do two things, namely using lots of cold butter and chilling the dough before baking it. They emerge from the oven deliciously golden.
Pomegranate-Jalape?o-Glazed Ham
To make the glaze for this ham recipe from chef Akasha Richmond, simmer store-bought jalape?o jelly with pomegranate juice and lemon juice. Then, add in some Dijon mustard, ground cinnamon, and ground ginger and simmer the mixture for a few more minutes. The glaze goes on the ham in two stages: pre-roast and then after the initial roast for a boost of flavor and some caramelization.
Dr Pepper-Glazed Ham with Prunes
Most smoked hams are sold fully cooked, so "Why bake them again?" meat master Bruce Aidells asks before answering his own question. It's to improve the texture and add a homemade glaze which in this case means one made with Dr Pepper soda and prunes. After the ham is cooked, Aidells reduces the pan juices and tosses in prunes to make a sauce. "Glazes flavor only the outside of the ham," he says. "But you can spoon pan sauces over every slice."
Easy Buttermilk Biscuits
Matt Taylor-Gross / Food Styling by Amelia Rampe
Make an extra batch of these biscuits and freeze them so you can have fresh, warm biscuits anytime.
Smoky Glazed Ham with Red Pepper Jelly
To achieve the perfect holiday ham, 2010 F&W Best New Chef Jonathon Sawyer makes the sauce that becomes a sweet-sticky glaze and the spicy pepper jelly a few days in advance. On the day of the party, the only thing left to do is to bake the ham.
Skillet Buttermilk Biscuits
Bake these tender, buttery little biscuits in a cast-iron skillet, then bring them to the table still in the pan.
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