Ham Steaks with Jalapeño and Cherry Cola Glaze

Recipe from the Big Green Egg website

This ham steak was one of the first things that I made on the Big Green Egg. It’s a fairly straight forward recipe so it makes for a great first time cook on the Egg. In fact, when I made it this time it was the first time that I made a side on the Egg while also making the main dish (that would be this twice stuffed potato recipe).
The best part is that the cherry cola makes for a sweet glaze which automatically makes it popular with kids. There’s a little alcohol in it, but not enough to make delinquents out of them. 😉

Ingredients

• 1 cup cherry cola
• 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 4 red jalapeños, seeded and chopped
• 1 green jalapeño, chopped with seeds
• 4 tablespoons cornstarch
• 4 tablespoons grenadine
• 4 (4-ounce) ham steaks
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Set the EGG for direct cooking (no convEGGtor) with the Cast Iron Grid. Preheat the EGG to 400°F.

Combine the cherry cola, brown sugar, and jalapeños in a small saucepan on the stovetop and simmer for 10 minutes.
If you’re not into spicy make sure none of the seeds from the jalapenos get into the sauce.

One or two made it into mine, but I figured one or two seeds isn’t going to make it too spicy. My son commented on the ham being a little too spicy so guess who was wrong! (For those keeping score… that would be me). Of course it didn’t stop him from devouring it. I mean, the main ingredient is cherry cola so…

Using a fork or whisk, mix the cornstarch with the grenadine.
I didn’t have grenadine in the house, but I did have amaretto. That worked just as well. Start whisking this together when the simmering is in the last two minutes or it can thicken into a clay like texture. As you can see in the picture above this happen a little to me. Luckily it declumped (new word!) when I put it in the blender.

Add cornstarch mixture to the saucepan. Whisk together and cook for 1 minute, or until thickened.

Carefully pour the hot glaze into the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade and process for 30 seconds.

I used my blender on a low to medium setting to do this. Worked just as well.

Pour the glaze into a small bowl and set aside.

Brush the ham steaks with the oil and season with pepper.
My supermarket didn’t have four 4 ounce ham steaks, but it did have one 16 ounce ham steak! We just split it four ways after it cooked.

Place the ham steaks on the Grid. Close the lid of the EGG and cook for 5 minutes, turn the steaks over, baste with the glaze, and continue cooking for 5 more minutes.
I wasn’t kidding when I said this was a great first recipe for the Egg. The ham steak is so thin that it needs almost no time to cook.

Transfer the steaks to a platter and baste them with the glaze.

Pour the rest of the glaze into a dish. Serve the ham steaks immediately with the glaze on the side.
This recipe makes a lot of glaze. We had so much leftover that we froze about ¾ of the glaze for a later cook.