Put a ham or shoulder in a large enough cooker-pail to allow of its
being covered with eight or ten quarts of water. A special oblong or
extra deep utensil may be required for cooking hams and such very large
cuts of meat. Put in the ham, add cold water to fill the utensil, and
bring it to a boil. This will serve to draw out a good deal of the salt
from the meat and will not extract much of the meat flavour, if the ham
be whole. A cut ham may be covered with boiling water which will seal
the pores on the surface of the meat and help to retain its juices.
Allow the ham to simmer for twenty minutes, or, if very large, for
one-half hour, then put it into a cooker for seven hours or more. The
larger the ham the greater the quantity of water must be, a
fifteen-pound ham taking as much as fifteen quarts of water. Success in
cooking large cuts of meat will depend to a great extent upon using
sufficient water.