Ham Toast
Chop the ham fine, then boil milk sufficient to soak the required quantity of toast; when boiling hot, dip nicely toasted slices of bread in the milk, and as each piece is laid on the platter spread with a little melted butter. When all the toast is moistened add two well beaten eggs, to the milk and ham that remains, stir constantly, and as soon as it thickens pour over the toast and serve.
A creamed-ham sauce poured over milk-soaked toast, written in the shorthand of a period cookbook that assumed you already knew the proportions. The whole thing hinges on the egg step.
- The hinge: do not let the egg sauce boilOnce the beaten eggs go into the hot milk and ham, keep the heat low and stir without stopping. It should thicken to the consistency of a thin custard; a boil will scramble the eggs into curds and weep liquid over the toast.
- Working quantitiesThe original gives none. For four servings, figure on about 1 cup finely chopped cooked ham, 1½ cups whole milk, 2 eggs, 8 slices of bread and 2 to 3 tablespoons butter.
- Dip, do not soakDip briefly -- The recipe calls for milk 'sufficient to soak' the toast, but the sequence (dip, lay on the platter, butter) suggests a quick pass rather than a long steep, and bread left to sit will collapse.
- What kind of hamThe recipe says only 'chop the ham fine', and most likely means cooked leftovers from a boiled or baked ham. Thick-cut deli ham works; dry-cured country ham does not without soaking, as it will make the sauce aggressively salty.
- Salt and pepperThe recipe lists no seasoning at all; the ham may have been counted on to supply it. Taste the milk after the ham has warmed in it and add pepper, and salt only if needed.
- Melted butterBrush it on rather than dotting cold butter over the slices. The toast is already damp and cooling, and cold butter will not spread.
- Serve at onceThere is no holding this dish. The toast softens steadily and the egg sauce tightens as it cools, so plate it directly from the pan.
Milk toast in its various forms was a common supper in the nineteenth-century American household: cheap, quick, easy on the digestion, and widely recommended as an invalid food for the sick and the elderly. Adding chopped ham and a thickening of egg turned that nursery dish into something more substantial, and it belongs to the same family of thrift cookery as creamed chipped beef on toast. Supper in this period was generally the light meal at the end of the day, often assembled from what the midday dinner had left behind, and a baked ham could be worked through for days in exactly this way.