Ham leftovers masquerade as prosciutto in this recipe. Easter rolls around and I think about ham. That was our family tradition when I was growing up. A ham dinner and an Easter Lamb Cake. But that’s another post. These days, ham means spiral-cut backed ham, with the sugar glaze, in the foil wrapper. Even though you can get it just about anywhere, I don’t think anyone does it as well as Honey-Baked®. Hope there’s one near you!
So, after Easter, there’s a lot of ham left over. Make this a creative opportunity. How many dishes and uses can you invent for your leftover ham? Here’s one that worked out great.
Ingredients
These amounts will get you four servings:
- 1 cup diced ham
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 diced onion
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- Salt and pepper
- Your pasta of choice. I used spiral pasta for test, and this was a good choice because it lots of surface area to hold the sauce.
How-To
- In your pasta pot, boil salted water for 16 oz. of pasta.
- In a 12″ pan, saute the onion in olive oil over medium heat for five minutes.
- Add the ham and heat through for two minutes.
- Add the cream, let it boil, and cook until it reduces to fairly thick consistency. Do the “coat the spoon” test.
- Add the peas and let them come up to temperature.
- Drain the pasta and save a cup of the pasta water.
- Turn off the heat to the pan and grate the cheese over the pan or add already grated cheese.
- Add the pasta to the pan and mix in thoroughly so that all those little valleys in the pasta get some sauce on them. Add a little pasta water is sauce gets to thick or to extend it.
- Serve right away and enjoy!