Brillat-Savarin may have been the philosopher in the kitchen but at times we all have to be philosophical about our cooking. A dish that you’ve exhausted yourself over is a flop, yet on another occasion something you threw together while keeping the ship afloat is a triumph. So it was with a ham that I prepared by taking a series of short cuts – it turned out to be the most delicious for years. Instead of spending time devising my own cure I relied on a double quantity of