Caramelized Ham & Citrus Dressed Beet Salad

A caramelized ham strip is what a pork lardon wants to be when it grows up.

First of all, I can see how the word caramelized might make you think of dessert. For the most part caramelization refers to the sugars being caramelized in the cooking process. Caramelizing is the process of slowly extracting (cooking low & slow) either natural sugars or sugars that have been added during processing. Many vegetables that have a high natural sugar content are commonly cooked to caramelization; onions, carrots and parsnips to name a few. On the other hand, many hams have sugars added during the curing process, which makes ham perfectly suitable for caramelizing. And yes, caramelized ham would be great on a scoop (or 3) of vanilla ice cream, perhaps with the addition of grilled pineapple or toasted pistachios… just saying.

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