A few days ago, I heard a hymn that instantly reminded me of my grandma (the same incredible woman who inspired my Watertown Wedding Soup recipe). As the verses went by, I found my eyes swelling, as I missed her more and more. There aren’t enough words to describe what a great person she was and how much I miss her. Every summer when I was growing up, I’d go visit her and Grandpa Carm on the St. Lawrence river, and I had so much fun playing croquet, beanbags (we were playing cornhole before it was a thing), swimming in the river, working on the Jumble and crossword puzzles, playing cards on the back porch every night, and eating daily afternoon and evening ice cream with them. While at the time, I didn’t appreciate being woken up for early morning walks towards the lighthouse, I wish I could go on one more of those walks with them today.
She knew her ham was my favourite, so she’d always make it at some point during the week. When I think of her and want to honor her, my mind immediately goes to ham (even though I know mine doesn’t hold a candle to hers). She’d always serve it with apple sauce, and we’d oft chomp on fresh corn from the local farms with it. Luckily, for this meal, I had some fresh homemade applesauce that my wife’s grandma gave us for Christmas, and we just so happened to have some corn too! Not knowing exactly how it would turn out, I combined both ingredients into a sauce…and I’m happy to report that it was pretty good. A little sweet, a little tart, and a little creamy, it went perfectly with the saltiness of the ham.
Time: 25 Minutes (a little more if you’re cooking fresh corn)
Ingredients:
- Ham Steak
- Corn (cooked…we used leftover corn from our Grilled In the Husk recipe, but frozen corn will work too.)
- Apple Sauce
- Heavy Cream
- Black pepper
Method:
- If you don’t have cooked corn, boil or husk grill it before you begin cooking.
- Preheat your grill.
- Cut your corn off the cob, and put it in a sauce pan with some apple sauce and some black pepper. Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally.
- When your grill is hot, lay your ham steak down upon it, and cook for about 3 minutes.
- To get nice crosshatched grill marks, rotate your ham 90 degrees, and let it cook for another 3 minutes.
- Flip your ham, and cook for another 3 minutes.
- Rotate your ham 90 degrees again…and then cook for yet another 3 minutes.
- As your ham finishes grilling, pour a tablespoon or two of heavy cream into your applesauce/corn mixture, and stir to combine. Bring back to a low simmer.
- Remove your ham from the grill when it’s done.
- Plate, top with your sauce, devour, and enjoy!
