how do you debone a ham?

Answer 1

It can be easy if it's a shank portion of the ham to a little more difficult if it's the butt portion of the ham.

Use a sharp boning knife (a knife that's relative narrow... a chef's knife can be 2 to 3" wide and difficult to manuever.

You can try to take the ham off in muscle groups... you'll see the separate groups at the cut end... or just cut straight through.

For a shank ham, start at the wide end and run the knife to the bone, following up to the tip.

Depending upon how pliabe the ham is, you can scrap around the bone and try to pull the bone off leaving the ham whole... What most likely will happen is you'll end up cutting it off in two pieces.

For the butt portion, it's more difficult because of the "aitch" bone (aka the pelvic bone). You can start at the wide end and follow the shank bone until you hit the bigger bone. Again, follow the contour of the bone to remove the ham. Because of the odd shape of the bone, you'll end up with smaller chunks of ham.

Answer 2

why would you want to? the bone (marrow) gives the ham flavor and when its in the oven it heats up cooking the middle of the ham while the outer parts are cooking

Answer 3

with a good knife