What I love about this next recipe is it is a chance to use another style of good country ham.

I'm going to wrap them around peaches.

Yes, good, fresh fragrant aromatic peaches.

[upbeat music] Some country hams come cut in these paper thin slices that might remind you of Prosciutto or Iberico.

Another of the world's great hams of which country, ham certainly is one.

What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna cut these slices in half lengthwise to make thin little strips.

So I'm just gonna cut this peach in half.

I'm going to take it apart, pop out the pit, and then I'm gonna cut it into wedges.

Now you'll notice that the peeling on these peaches is not coming loose.

And that's the thing about a peach.

If you start cutting and it comes loose, go ahead and peel it, lean into that.

But if it's staying on there, it's gonna be great in the salad.

And then look at this little trick.

I'm gonna take a piece of ham and I'm going to wrap each peach slice in one of these, like giving it a little belt.

So this ham is fully cooked and ready to eat.

So what we're gonna do is just warm it up in a skillet.

And sometimes if you're doing really fatty ham, you don't need any oil.

But sometimes I put just a couple of drops, just to gloss up the bottom of the pan.

You're not frying this ham, you're just warming these up.

And so you put 'em in the pan.

Hear that little bit of noise?

That's how you know that your pan is hot enough.

And these are gonna cook about two minutes per side and they can just hang out over here while I move on to the next stage, which is some wonderful ricotta cheese, good creamy ricotta.

Now this is fresh ricotta.

Maybe not the kind you would use in lasagna.

This is a fresh product.

It's creamy and delicious, but there is a little bit of a granular texture to it.

So sometimes I will put in just a splash of cream and stir it around until it almost has the consistency of whipped cream.

And then I'm going to put in the zest of a gorgeous lemon to just zest off there a little bit.

And then sit that lemon aside cuz it's gonna show up later, just a pinch of salt.

And stir that around.

And that part is ready.

So that took about a minute.

Let me check these peaches 'cause I bet the first ones are ready to flip over.

So I'm just taking my little tongs here and just flipping these over.

Now while the second side is cooking, I'm gonna finish up my salad components.

And what I have here is some gorgeous arugula and mint.

I love adding mint or another good herb to my salad greens.

It adds aroma, color, interest and peaches and mint and mint and that ham are all matches made in heaven.

So remember how I said that we were gonna use that lemon later?

So I'm gonna cut it in half and I'm gonna squeeze this fresh lemon juice over these greens.

We're sort of making vinaigrette a step at a time instead of in a bowl.

So there's one half of my lemon and then the other half of this pretty lemon in here.

A good drizzle of my oil.

Now if you're wondering how much oil to add, the idea is to make sure every little leaf is glossy, but you don't want any standing liquid in the bottom.

So we're gonna put a little bit of pepper and salt, toss this around and we're good to go.

So what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna take a good golden floral honey and drizzle that over.

And that is liquefying that honey and caramelizing it a little bit, just from the ham juices and the honey and a little more good cracked pepper.

And you know it's already time to assemble this salad.

I love using a big, pretty simple platter for this.

I'm gonna take straight to the table.

This is called a composed salad.

And all that means is we're gonna compose the pieces on the plate rather than tossing them together in a bowl.

So you might think that the ricotta goes on top, you want it on the bottom because it's gonna lay literally the foundation for the good stuff to come.

And then look what we're doing here.

We're taking our mint and our arugula with that gorgeous, bright, citrusy, acidic lemon.

And we're just gonna arrange that on top of the ricotta.

And now comes our peaches, the star of this show.

So we're gonna put our beautifully salty, delicious...

I'm so excited about this.

Put this and then take that honey and those ham drippings, all of that delicious pan juice over the top.

And this is the last little flourish of flavor and crunch.

These are candy pecans.

You can make them, you can buy them.

It is amazing.

And if you really like to play with honey like I do, maybe one more gorgeous, amazing, delicious drizzle.

And by golly, we are done.

Now, yes, there's a lot going on, but let me promise the star of all of this is that air cured country ham.

It's not smoked, but it's delicious and it is gonna be a salad that you and your friends are gonna talk about for weeks to come.

It's a keeper.