Grilled Ham with a Rustic Apple Prune Sauce, Escalloped Potato, Broccoli and Rutabaga


This was a pork chop recipe that I cooked at a Swiss Chef's tropical resort in the 1980's.  The rustic apple prune sauce is equally as nice with ham. 
     Rustic Apple Prune Sauce Recipe:  Peel and core an apple.  Cut the apple into wedges.  Simmer the apple wedges in a little bit of water with dried prune halves, a little bit of minced ginger, a little bit of sugar, a pat of butter and a little squeeze of lemon juice.  Add a pinch each of: cinnamon, allspice and sea salt.  Simmer till the apples are cooked tender and a light sauce is formed.  Keep the sauce warm over low heat. 
     Rutabaga Recipe:  Julienne cut a peeled rutabaga into a French Fry shapes.  Boil in water till al dente.  Drain off the water and season the rutabaga with a pat of butter, sea salt and white pepper. 
     Escaloped Potato:  Bake a triangle shaped cut of escalloped potato at 400 degrees till the high lights on the potato slices become lightly browned.  (The recipe for the escalloped potato is in the 11/28/2010 Honey Curry Pork Chop recipe blog.) 
     Recipe:  Grill some thick ham slices with a little bit of unsalted butter in a saute pan over medium heat.  Arrange the ham slices on the plate.  Spoon the apple plum sauce on top of the ham.  Set some steamed broccoli or a vegetable of your choice on the plate.  Set the rutabaga on the plate in a stacked lattice pattern.  Set the escalloped potato triangle on the plate vertically. 
     This is a nice presentation of the typically boring ham dinner with apple sauce!  The apple or prune sauce is delicious with ham.  It is a chunky sauce and not a puree.  The rustic apple sauce is very light and not too sweet. 
     The rutabaga I have served in a few restaurants using this presentation.  Cut this way, the rutabaga looks like French Fries.  I had to stop serving rutabaga this way at an English Pub that I worked for because a few drunken customers would mistakenly complain about the soggy French Fries.  LOL  What they thought was French Fries was really this style of rutabaga!   This is a nice chilly day dinner!  Yum!  ...  Shawna