Ham with bourbon cream sauce

This is a different kind of ham gravy, so to speak. We were looking for an alternative to the whole ham hoopla, since we'd done the family gathering with grilled chuck eyes at a carpet-ripping-out party on Saturday. So I thawed this impulse purchase from a winter's farmers market from Auntie Annie's Fields in Dundas. This is what ham steak is supposed to be: a thickish slab of actual meat, not something so thin it turns tough when you cook it.

Ham steak with bourbon cream sauce

From Gourmet Oct. 2007

Ingredients

1 fully cooked bone-in ham steak

1 tablespoon butter

¼ cup bourbon

½ cup cream

2 tablespoons grainy mustard

Pinch of instant coffee powder

Method

Pat steak dry. Melt butter in a large skillet and fry over high heat until heated through, about 5 minutes a side. Transfer to a platter.

Add bourbon to pan drippings. Cook to reduce slightly. Add cream, mustard, and coffee powder. Simmer until slightly thickened. Drizzle some of sauce over the top of ham; serve the rest on the side.

Rating: Let's see: ham, butter, bourbon, cream and mustard. Hard to go far wrong, aside from the cardiac arrest issue. Far fewer leftovers to deal with than a regular ham, so that's a big plus in my book. I do kind of ponder whether the sauce is wasted on ham, which didn't need the help. Could be mighty tasty on chicken cutlets. The coffee powder is a nice flavor hint.