A New Twist on an Old Favorite

So, Easter to me has always meant Grandma's baked ham. Mmmmm. But, this year, Grandma's all the way out in Minnesota, and I'm nowhere near there. Thus, I'm on my own if I want Easter ham. Now, my kitchen has been bubbling and stewing and steaming all afternoon long: fruit sauces, pears to puree, a new bean soup (see future post, provided it turns into something delicious). And then I remembered I needed to make myself some ham for dinner. Right.

Got the ham steak? Check.

Baking dish? Check.

Recipe? ...oops, crap, how am I gonna cook this ham anyway?

Umm. To the cookbooks! I pulled out my trusty Joy of Cooking and Better Homes & Gardens cookbooks. They've never let me down. And sure enough, they had some pretty nice ideas - ideas that are very classic and therefore somehow boring today. I guess maybe since I was making my own Easter dinner today, I wanted something a little different. Or maybe I was just feeling adventurous in the kitchen with that new bean soup simmering on the stove.

Whatever the reason, I decided I needed to combine some ideas from both cookbooks and come up with my own glaze for baking my ham steak. The result? Success! A ridiculously simple, totally delicious little glaze.

Hope everyone (who celebrates) had a nice Easter dinner of their own! Mine was ham steak with delicious new glaze and some steamed green beans. And a fantastically tall glass of water.

Baked Ham Steak

1 ham steak (1-1 1/2 lbs)
1 Tbsp reduced sodium soy sauce
1 Tbsp honey (preferably pure honey, not the processed stuff)
~1 Tbsp water (or less if you want a thicker glaze)
1 tsp brown sugar
Pepper to taste
Spray olive oil

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Position rack in bottom 1/3 of your oven.

1. Lightly spray glass baking dish with olive oil - very thin coating is all that's necessary.
2. Mix together soy sauce, honey, brown sugar. Add water to desired consistency. (Using the full Tbsp will make the glaze a little thicker than the consistency of water).
3. Spread thin layer of glaze on one side of the ham steak (this will be the bottom, so don't apply too thickly). Put this side down in the baking dish.
4. Pour the rest of the glaze over the top of the ham steak in the baking dish. Try to make it evenly dispersed over the whole steak. Sprinkle pepper to taste over the glazed top of the steak (I used 3-4 shakes of my pepper shaker).
5. Bake for 20 min. Take out the dish and reapply the glaze from the bottom of the baking dish to the top of the ham steak. Bake for another 10 min.

Enjoy!

[You may have noticed that this recipe uses brown sugar, and if you've kept up with this blog at all, you'll know this is one of my new favorite recipes because it uses brown sugar!]