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Ham Salad in Potato Nests
Mince 1 cupful of boiled or fried ham, 4 hardboiled eggs (boil at least twenty minutes), 1 teaspoonful of celery seed, I of mustard, I spoonful of Worcestershire sauce, 2 green peppers. Make nests of cold mashed potatoes, fill with ham heaping high, dress with mayonnaise and minced parsley or lettuce.
A leftovers dish dressed up for the table: minced ham bound with mayonnaise, mounded into cold mashed potato. Most of what needs adjusting is measurement vagueness and one badly outdated egg timing.
- The eggsTwenty minutes of boiling gives chalky yolks with a green-grey ring and a sulphurous smell. Twelve minutes in barely simmering water, then straight into cold water, is plenty for a firm yolk that still tastes of egg.
- "1 spoonful"The Worcestershire is a spoonful of unstated size; read it as a teaspoon and add more to taste. The teaspoon of mustard is more likely dry mustard powder than prepared, though the recipe does not say; a teaspoon of powdered mustard in this quantity of ham is assertive but not unreasonable.
- Celery seedA whole teaspoon is a lot by modern palates; the seed is far more pungent than celery. Start with half and crush it lightly so it disperses.
- Green peppersRaw sweet bell peppers, seeded and finely minced. Two medium peppers to one cup of ham makes a very green, very wet salad — one is usually enough, and blotting the mince dry helps the mayonnaise hold.
- SaltNo salt is called for, and rightly so: boiled or fried ham plus Worcestershire carries the seasoning. Taste before adding any.
- The nestsCold mashed potato holds a shape only if it is stiff and well seasoned — mash made with butter and little milk, chilled thoroughly. Shape with a spoon or a piping bag onto lettuce, or press into ramekins and turn out.
- MayonnaiseProbably homemade, though the recipe does not say. Commercial mayonnaise is thicker and sweeter; thin it with a spoonful of the ham's own juices or a little vinegar so it coats rather than clumps.
- Yield and servingA cup of ham with four eggs fills four generous nests. Serve cold, and assemble within an hour or two of eating — mayonnaise-dressed salad sitting warm on a buffet is the one real risk here.
Ham salad is a familiar thrift dish: the last of a boiled ham, too little to serve as meat, minced fine and stretched with hard-boiled egg until it feeds four again. Potato nests belong to a slightly different tradition — a taste, common in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for presenting plain food in a moulded shape, where a border or nest of mashed potato turned scraps into something that could be carried to the table without apology. The mayonnaise and Worcestershire, rather than a boiled dressing, suggest a period when bottled sauces were ordinary pantry items, though mayonnaise appears in home cookbooks well before commercial jars did. Celery seed, cheap and shelf-stable, often stood in for fresh celery in books written to a budget.