Adelina's Ham

When I was a teenager we always work for a family friend's ham store (Adelina's Ham) on Christmas break.  It's a fun experience selling ham and just being with my brother, sister, my cousins (Jermain and Me Ann), and friends from church.  We get to meet lots of people, even celebrities! We will work all day and at night we will all go home together, share stories about funny experiences and interesting people we sell ham to. We always get tired but it's fun experience.  On our last day we will get paid which is so awesome because that means more Christmas money for shopping! Then the second best part is that we get to bring home some ham and other goodies for our Noche Buena (Christmas Eve Dinner).  Now this ham is no ordinary ham, it's actually one of the best in the Philippines and it's a favorite in our household. I always crave for this ham and for the past 7 years I hadn't tasted this heavenly ham.

This Thanksgiving  we brought home some left over ham and me being nostalgic about Adelina's ham I tried to recreate it using the left over ham.  I think what make's that ham especially good is that it uses a special sauce.  I don't know exactly what's in that sauce but all I know is that it's basically sugar, pineapple juice and rum.




So here is how I recreate it. I have some left over caramelized sugar from making flan, I used that caramel and heat it up on the pan, put a splash or pineapple juice and rum. Boil it to reduce then when it's reduced I put the sliced ham to coat. This is definitely a sweet ham, Josh doesn't like it that much but i love it since it brings back memories of my favorite time of the year in the Philippines, Christmas!