The kitchen smells different when there's a gammon on. Not subtle. The long, slow simmer fills the whole house with something savoury and warm, a smell that says people are coming, that there's a plan, that tonight matters more than most.

I cook this at Christmas mostly, though it has appeared at Easter and once or twice on a birthday when I couldn't think of anything better. The truth is, a glazed gammon is one of the most generous things you can put on a table. It feeds a crowd without fuss, it looks after itself for most of the cooking, and the moment you bring it out, burnished and sticky and proud in the middle of the table, everyone stops talking for a second. That pause is worth the morning.

The method is honest. You simmer the joint first, low and patient, with a few aromatics to keep it company. This does the real work, drawing out the salt and coaxing the meat into tenderness. Then you strip the skin, score the fat into diamonds, press in cloves, and paint the whole thing with a glaze of honey, mustard, and demerara sugar. Thirty minutes in a hot oven and it turns lacquered and golden and smells like every good December you can remember.

I wrote it down in the notebook years ago. "Gammon. Cloves. Honey. The table full." That was Christmas, or it might have been Easter. It doesn't matter. The feeling was the same. There are few better feelings than putting a warm plate in front of someone, and there are fewer better sights than this, sitting at the centre of a table surrounded by people who are glad to be there.