Home-cooked ham with parsnip & chive mash

There's a stall in Birkenhead Market which sells gammon "corners" ridiculously cheaply - £4.99 for 2.2 Kg! I cut mine in half and sliced the thin end for bacon; the other I boiled in the pressure cooker for about an hour-and-a-half and left to cool. For this dish I hand-carved some - the rest I'll do on my electric slicer.

Parsley Sauce:
On a very low heat infuse 4 dstsp fresh chopped parsley in 1 cup of milk for about 20 minutes. Add S+P, a scant tsp veg bouillon powder and turn the heat up. Dissolve a scant tsp of Arrowroot in a little water - or cornflour if you're not as posh as me - and stir gradually into the sauce. Add 1dstsp of the ham water and check seasoning.

Potato, Parsnip & Chive Mash
Peel  and chop an equivalent amount of potato and parsnip - one medium one of each should suffice. Boil in lightly-salted water until tender, adding 1 dstsp of dried chives a couple of minutes before the end of cooking. I would have used fresh chives but my greengrocer didn't have any, and the spring onions (another alternative) were way too expensive! Drain, reserving the cooking liquor to moisten when you've finished mashing. I always make my mash in advance and microwave to serve. The cabbage and shredded carrot were cooked in the ham water, the Irish way.

To serve, put the ham into the sauce, whack up the heat for no more than a minute.......and enjoy!