Several years ago, I stumbled on a Usenet post waxing lyrical about the savoury potential of Coca Cola when combined with pork. That same Coca Cola that your teachers spent years warning you about in the very darkest terms; at my school they used a can to dissolve a volunteer’s recently shed milk tooth away to nothing, and demonstrated its unholy ability to clean pennies with rotten-incisored glee.
I have a caffeine-addicted husband and a yen to flout the outdated authority of my Home Economics teacher. I have spent several years perfecting a ham in cola recipe, and am more than mildly irritated to find that these days, Nigella Lawson is publishing a version of ham in Coke in every book she writes. No matter. Mine’s better. Ham needs something sweet and spicy to counter its savoury saltiness – it happens that cola is the perfect foil. I can’t think of another way I’d prefer to cook ham now – this may sound a perverse thing to do to a nice chunk of pork, but trust me; it’s fabulous.
You’ll need:
1kg smoked gammon
1-2 large bottles cola (more or less depending on the size of your pan)
1 red onion
1 bulb garlic
1 stick cinnamon
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
2 dried chilis
20 cloves (give or take a few)
1 teaspoon ground chipotle chili
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground mustard
4 tablespoons maple syrup
Place the gammon in a close-fitting, thick-bottomed pan (important, this thick bottom; you need to avoid singing the bottom of your ham) with the onion, halved, the bulb of garlic, cut in halves, the cinnamon stick, coriander seeds and whole chilis. Pour over Coke to cover (I’m afraid it has to be the full-fat version; Diet Coke won’t caramelise properly) and put on a medium heat until it reaches a simmer. Lower the heat enough to keep a gentle simmer, and put the lid on for 2 1/2 hours.
After your kitchen timer has gone, preheat the oven to 200c and lift the whole ham carefully from the liquid (Hang onto that liquid if you want to make Boston baked beans). Leave the ham to cool enough to handle. With a sharp knife, remove the rind, without removing the fat.
You’ll be left with a joint of meat with a glistening covering of fat. Use your sharp knife to score the top in diamonds, and stick a clove in each corner of each diamond. Make a paste from the ground cinnamon, ground chipotles, mustard powder and maple syrup, and brush it all over the ham, concentrating on the fatty surface. The sweet mixture will caramelise onto the crisping fat; this is pretty much 90% bad for you, but, unfortunately, it tastes approximately 100% good. I really should talk a friendly social statistician somewhere into working out just how bad for you things have to be to start tasting good; I’m sure there’s an interesting graph in that somewhere.
Put the whole ham in the oven, uncovered, for twenty minutes, remove and check that the fatty surface has formed a crust. (If you prefer more crust, put the ham under a high grill for two minutes.)
If you have made a large ham, you can make several good meals from it. Eat it like this, freshly cooked, with some sautéed potatoes; eat it in Pasta alla Medici; use it to flavour Boston baked beans.
If you’re having people round for dinner and feel like cheating, feel free not to mention the cola. And if you enjoyed this as much as I do, you’ll probably want to check out the sticky chicken pieces in coke too.
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I don’t much like either ham or cola and I can warrant that combined, the two are pretty pleasant.
Dear God, I’d marry you if we both didn’t allready have husbands! Christ allmighty I think I may pass out from the decadance. Your right. Yours is better then Nigella’s. Impressive.
It does sound wonderful, but do you think that Diet Coke would be even close? I’m not into sugar, it makes me crazy when I eat it. (Crazy to eat more mostly, but that is bad enough.)
Diet Coke – I’m not sure. Heat will do awful things to aspartame; it degrades in heat and loses its sweetness, as well as gaining some toxicity. I have read a recipe where you cook the ham in weak coffee (with sugar and more spices). Perhaps that’d suit you better, without the sugar?
Liz, my wife cooked this for me at the weekend. Was delicious. Thanks for the recipe. Though we have a lot of coke left over. Not sure what to do with it as we don’t really drink the stuff. I don’t work in IT you know!
Maybe Nigella’s coke chocolate cake…..
Your coca cola ham looks really good. I shall definitely try out the recipe and see what my friends think of coke and ham.
Hi
Did you use a norml or fan assisted oven? What would teh temperatures be for a fan assisted? Think I will try this for Christmas dinner.
Thanks a lot, you have made life a lot easier for me!
Michelle
Hi Michelle – my oven is fan-assisted (although my experience is that there isn’t *that* much difference – only between 15 and 20 degrees). So you can comfortably set that dial to 200.
GAWD – this is the best recipe on the internet! Thanks so much.
Ciara xxx
Use the coke juice to make Boston Baked Beans seehttp://www.gastronomydomine.com/2008/07/boston-baked-beans.html
use the coke liquor to make Boston Baked Beans See
http://www.gastronomydomine.com/2008/07/boston-baked-beans.html
I think I love you!! I've been asked to cook 2 hams plus Boston baked beans for 230 people – you've given me the ideal combination! Thank you thank you!
Hello,
Do you soak your ham overnight to get some of the salt out? My mum does this but I'm not sure if its necessary for this because I've never cooked a Ham before.
Thanks.
Hello again! No, I don't soak it before cooking – it really doesn't need salting when poached, and hams these days tend to be a lot less salty anyway.
I really want to do this for Chritsmas Day, can I do the simmering,the night before. Then do the glaze and oven bit Christmas Day ?
Hi – cooked this once for a non-pork eating person. He loved it, just been to get the ingrediants to do it again. I substitute honey for maple syrup. Hope that’s ok! Sharon
Hi Sharon! I actively encourage experimentation and substitution – really glad it worked so very well for you!
I’m trying this today! I have the coke and gammon joint at the ready… I just need the rest. I’ll let you know how it goes!