Home › The Principles of Cookery › Ham Toast
Ham Toast
Take three ounces of lean ham. Chop it very small, and mix it with the beaten yolk of an egg. Put an ounce of butter into a saucepan, and, when it is melted, stir in the ham and egg, season with cayenne, and, when the mixture is quite hot, spread it upon a slice of hot buttered toast. Serve at once. Time, three or four minutes to heat the ham, etc. Sufficient for one person. Probable cost, 6d.
A single-serving savoury from the era when breakfast and supper both leaned on cooked meat on toast. The whole thing lives or dies on the heat under the pan.
- The hinge: gentle heatEgg yolk begins to set at roughly 150F, so the mixture can curdle into scrambled crumbs if the pan gets too hot. Keep it over low heat and stir constantly until it thickens to a loose paste, within the three or four minutes the recipe allows.
- Quantities in cupsThree ounces of lean ham is roughly half a cup once finely chopped; one ounce of butter is two tablespoons. Two tablespoons of butter to three ounces of ham is rich by modern taste, though the butter is part of what binds the mixture.
- The hamMost likely cooked ham off the bone, trimmed of fat -- the leftover end of a boiled or baked ham. Modern wet-cured sandwich ham holds more water and will thin the mixture; pat it dry and chop it finely by hand rather than in a processor, which turns it to paste.
- CayenneCayenne was the standard seasoning for devilled and savoury dishes of the period. A pinch is plenty for one portion. No salt is needed; the ham carries it.
- The toastButtered toast must be hot and fairly thick, and the mixture spread the moment it comes off the heat, or the bread goes leathery underneath. Cut into fingers if serving as a savoury course.
- Yield and scalingOne slice, one person, as the original says. It multiplies cleanly: use one yolk per three ounces of ham, and work in batches rather than filling a large pan, where the mixture at the edges will overcook.
- Probable costSixpence, a small sum, which is the point. This is a use for the last scraps of a ham too dry to slice.
Cassell's places this among a long family of Victorian "toasts" and savouries -- anchovy, mushroom, marrow, cheese -- small hot dishes served at the end of dinner or at breakfast. The technique of binding chopped cooked meat with egg yolk and butter over gentle heat is the same one behind potted and devilled preparations of the period, and it exists chiefly to make the last unsliceable end of a cured ham into something worth serving. The cayenne marks it as a savoury rather than a mere sandwich: a sharp, salty mouthful was often said to be the proper way to close a meal, a convention that survived in British clubs and dining rooms well into the twentieth century before the sweet pudding gradually displaced it.