4 kg uncooked ham on the bone
30 pieces of clove
4 pints of hot water, boiling

For the poaching liquid:

2 large 750ml cartons of cranberry juice
4 apples, roughly chopped
3/4 cup maple syrup
5 large sticks of cinnamon
6 pints water
3 thumbs of ginger, thickly sliced
15 pieces star anise
4 heaped tbs of sea salt

For the Caramelized Apple Glaze:

6 apples, chopped into small pieces
1 cup brown sugar
3 sticks of cinnamon
¾ cup salted butter
1 cup maple syrup
½ cup pomengranate molasses
1 cup of pomengranate juice
1 tsp finely cracked red peppercorns

Start by cleaning the ham with a new, very clean wet cloth. Now boil the 4 pints of water and pour over the ham, as if you are scalding the skin.

Now combine all the ingredients for the poaching liquid in a very large deep saucepan, big enough to fit your ham. Make sure the ham is submerged. Now set this all to boil on a medium heat. Leave this to cook for at least 4 ½ hours. Keep checking in on it every hour and top up with water as you need. The water should not dry out at all.

Now remove the ham and discard the poaching liquid. Whilst this is still very hot, take a sharp knife and very carefully cut away the thick outer skin, leaving a ½ inch thickness of fat underneath. Be careful as this is burning hot so you may want to, as I do, wear some clean, preferably new rubber gloves.

Now score your preferred pattern into the ham. I am a complete traditionalist so the typical diamond scoring is what I usually do. Now set aside, covered with a clean cloth whilst you prepare the glaze.

Start by melting the butter in a large frying pan. Keep this on a low to medium heat. Now add the brown sugar and gently stir until it starts to melt into a dark caramel.

Now add the apples and let this all cook until the apples have softened. Take a potato masher and mash the apple into the caramel. Cook for a further 4-5 minutes once you have crushed the apples down.

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees centigrade

Now add rest of the ingredients and cook for a further 15 minutes until your glaze starts becoming syrupy and shiny. Remove from the heat and very carefully place into a blender. Being very very careful as you work with this hot syrup, liquidize it all until it is thick and you should have reached a honey like consistency.

Now place the ham in a large roasting pan. Ladle over some of the Apple Glaze and brush liberally all over. Once this is done you can stud in the cloves into the center of each diamond. I do this after brushing on the glaze as you will find that if you do it before, you will lose all your cloves!

Now I must admit at this stage I do pop my ham into my smoker for about half an hour, but, seriously, I don’t want you to drive you mad with this ham !! So it really doesn’t hurt for it to go straight into the oven. What you can do if you really fancy a bit of smokiness is to place a tray of tea leaves mixed with some brown sugar underneath on a shelf lower than the ham in the oven. But please don’t stress about this too much, your ham will still turn out delicious.

Cover with a large foil tent and let this cook for a further 1 hour , 15 minutes with the foil on . You must, however, please brush on some fresh glaze every half and hour.

Now for the last half an hour, (and this really should be half an hour before you serve up the ham – if you’ve got time to kill before you serve, switch off the oven and reheat it again for this last stage before you serve it). Remove the foil, brush on yet more of that decadent syrupy goodness and let this roast happily for the last half hour.

Your end result should be a succulent, moist Christmas ham with rivulets of syrup caramelized on the outer skin. The pomegranate and apple bring a sweetness to the ham that is truly heavenly. I hope you are as delighted as I am when you serve this up.

A very very Merry and Happy Christmas to all my Taste Safari fans! You have made this year more incredible than I could have imagined.