Honey & Clove Sauce ♥ For those who eat ham & turkey

I hope everyone had a great foodie and family day!!
For those who make more than the turkey as the main event, this glaze is a great way to dress a ham.

Ever since Joan Lunden was the host on Good Morning American, we have been making our baked hams with her recipe. It was easy to make and easy to halve for a small baked ham.
I love that BJ's sells a three pack of small DAK brand canned ham and they are perfect for a family of 2. I always have one, or three, in my pantry.

While researching duck breast recipes, I switched on my local PBS channel and the show just happened to be about cooking duck breasts. There have been a few chefs not only own restaurants in Ireland but they have managed to take traditional Irish cooking and turned it on it's head.

It caught my attention and I jotted down the website and printed out a few recipes.
Realized the sauce for the duck was on the very sweet side I stuck it on the "to be filed" pile and moved on.
The other day I was about to throw it out when I too a good look at the actual ingredients and realized it was the recipe for our baked ham but up three notches.

It went from the "toss this" pile to the "make this now" file and this night was NOW.

Honey & Clove Sauce
Adapted by Neven Maguire: Home Chef

makes 1/2 cup

* 8 ounces beef stock
* 4 tablespoons clear honey
* 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
* 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
* 2 tablespoon light brown sugar
* 2 tablespoons ketchup
* 2 teaspoons whole cloves
* sea salt & freshly ground pepper

1.  Place the stock, honey, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, ketchup and cloves in a small pan. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer vigorously for 20 minutes, until the mixture has thickened and right before it gets too thick (it will thicken as it cools).
2. Season to taste then pass through a sieve into a clean pot, discarding the cloves. Reheat gently and use as required.

This will keep for up to 1 week in the fridge in a rigid container or can be frozen.

To bake the ham, I pour a cup of beer into a baking pan and cut diagonal slits on top of the ham, making a diamond shape. Cover with foil and bake in a 250° oven for 30-40 minutes until the cuts in the ham split open to receive the glaze.

Brush a liberal amount of sauce over the top and return the ham to the oven, uncovered this time, for another 10 minutes and repeat the brushing one more time.
Serve with some of the sauce in a small bowl.

This sauce was sweet but had a slight tart taste (from the balsamic and soy) but was perfect on a fatty, salty baked ham, and I think any cut of pork would do well with this glaze.

When The Nudge requested bone-in pork chops for Football Sunday this week and since I had about 1/2 cup leftover, I gave him a brush, a bowl and my leftover sauce. Since we were eating cheesy cauliflower gratin and garlic mashed potatoes, it was a nice departure from all that dairy.