What a ham!

Yesterday I asked my husband to pick up a couple packages of bacon from CDA (update: closed due to a fire in 2017) while he was downtown. What I meant was the sliced poitrine fumée that they sell for about 1200cfa/pack of 5-6 slices. But what he came back with was two of these:

Bacon de porc fumée in rounds of about 800g each for 5000cfa. Definitely a lot cheaper, and it looked promising as smoked country ham.

So this morning I sliced into it. It had a nice smoky scent, not too heavy or artificial. It sliced easily, but wasn’t overly processed. I tossed the slices in a skillet on high heat, made some eggs, toasted some English muffins, sliced some Gouda and pulled out the blackberry preserves (a key ingredient).

The end result was some pretty amazing open-faced breakfast sandwiches!

The ham had a really good flavor, no gristly or tough bits and was easy to eat on the sandwich. And at that price, it’s even a little cheaper than the icky processed ham I’d been buying at the supermarket. But this has much more potential! I’m thinking honey ham sandwiches, Hawaiian pizzas and glazed ham for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Who’s got a recipe to share?

PS – If you go to CDA to buy some ham, buy a 2-kilo block of mozzarella cheese while you’re at it. At 9000cfa, it comes out to be a lot cheaper than supermarkets!