Smoked Hamloaf
Howdy, y'all and welcome to the website.
As long as I can remember, every Easter morning, my mother would pull a Hamloaf out of the oven. People would come from all over to grab a slice of her Ham Loaf. My mother was a great cook. I love her so much - she was my inspiration in chasing my dream of making a living out of cooking. There's just one tiny catch here.
I never was much of a fan of my mama's hamloaf.
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Kent's Hamloaf
I always thought my mama's hamloaf could use some more flavor. I've added some chilies, changed the manner of cooking from baking to smoking, and added a few other tricks I have up my sleeve. Give my ham loaf a try, and maybe you can change your family's Easter traditions.
First off, mix up some cow juice, roasted garlic bread crumbs, and cackleberries in a bowl. This is going to serve as the base of the ham loaf. You can use different flavors of bread crumbs, if you like, but I do prefer some roasted garlic.
Form Into a Loaf
Now - for the ground ham. Find you a pound and a half of fully cooked ham, and run it through a meat grinder. If you don't have a meat grinder, just take it to your local meat market or the meat department of the grocery store and ask the feller in the back to do you a favor. He'll do it in exchange for the recipe, I bet.
Tip: Grinding meat? Throw a few slices of good bacon in the grinder with the rest of it. It'll put almost any recipe over the top.
Make sure you also grind up about six slices of bacon with the ham. Mix the ham and bacon with some pork sausage. Slice up a yellow onion - yellow onions are a little sweet and will be a nice addition to the ham loaf. Add it to the meat mixture.
You have the best ham loaf mixers attached to your arm right there. Put on some gloves if you like and mix all of the ground meat, milk, eggs, and of course - some Hatch green chilies. My mama would have never used these but I know this loaf needs 'em.
If the mixture does not hold together in a loaf, add some bread crumbs. If you've ever made a meat loaf you know exactly how firm this stuff should be. Give the loaf a generous bath of my original Mesquite seasoning and get the fire started.
Using hardwood lump charcoal, start the fire. Place the loaf on a bed of bread crumbs on top of a cookie sheet. Lay uncooked bacon over the top and tuck underneath. I'm using about four pieces, you use as much as you can fit on there.
Place the baking sheet on the grill over indirect heat at about 250 degrees for an hour and twenty minutes.
While the ham loaf is smoking, mix together the glaze. When the internal temperature is between 140 and 150, use some tongs to move the loaf over to direct heat for ten minutes or so, continually basting with the homemade glaze.
Remove from heat. Allow to sit for about five minutes, and then slice and serve with your favorite traditional Easter sides, like my Hot Cross Buns and Deviled Eggs.
