Boneless ham can be made from various cuts of pork, either by removing the bone or reforming chunks of meat. Some prefer bone-in ham for richer flavor, but deboning makes slicing and cooking easier. Slicing boneless ham is simple, but bone-in ham can be challenging.
A boneless ham can refer to several cuts of pork that contain no bone because it has been removed. On some occasions, a boneless ham may also be a small piece of ham, usually packaged in a tin, that is too small a cut to fit part of one of the ham’s bones. Deboning a ham is a common practice, however, intended to provide an easier means of cutting the ham and ensure an even temperature during cooking.
The boneless ham can be taken from the hock or shoulder meat. Some hams are semi-boned ham and still have a small bone. Some prefer this style as leaving the bone on will lend a richer flavor to the ham and the small leg bone is infinitely easier to cut than trying to cut around the top portion of the hock or shoulder bone. Ham purists may insist on bone-in ham with the larger bones, rather than a boneless ham, simply because the flavor of the ham will be richer.
Sometimes, a boneless ham is not a continuous cut of meat but is instead reformed from chunks of meat. This can also be called a ham roulade and is often seen in cured meats. Reforming allows this type of boneless ham to contain some flavor-enhancing fat marbling or to cut the fat so that the ham has fewer calories. It also makes sense when using slicers, as cutting a ham bone is no easy job. Reformed boneless ham can also be found in large canned hams.
Ham is actually one of the easiest meats to slice when cooked, but the ham bone can prove challenging. You can peel the ham after it’s cooked, but even this is often difficult to do, especially when you want to serve the ham hot.
The easiest way, since the bone is usually the dead center, is to slice the top meat thinly, then flip the ham to repeat on the bottom. You can also avoid this problem by purchasing boneless spiral sliced ham, although the taste may be inferior to a ham that still contains bones.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
