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A Delicious Jellied Ham Loaf
1 tablespoon gelatine 1/4 cup cold water 1 cup boiling water 4 tablespoons diced carrot 4 tablespoons diced onion 2 tablespoons diced celery 1 cup cold water 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup cooked ham 2 hard cooked eggs Soak gelatine in one-fourth cup cold water for five minutes. Pour boiling water over vegetables and cook gently until soft. Add soaked gelatine to hot vegetable mixture and stir until dissolved. Add cold water and salt, stir and set aside until thick like molasses. Fold in minced ham. Slice eggs thin with egg slicer and garnish bottom and sides of loaf pan. Turn mixture in and set away in electrical refrigerator for an hour or more. Serves 6.
A gelatine loaf of the kind that filled luncheon and bridge tables between the wars. It comes together quickly, but the setting stage is where it succeeds or fails.
- The hinge: wait for the molasses stageIf you fold the ham in while the liquid is still thin it sinks to the bottom and the loaf unmoulds in two layers. Chill until the gelatine mounds slightly on a spoon, roughly the consistency described, then fold.
- Gelatine measureOne tablespoon is a little more than a standard 7 g envelope (an envelope is about 2 1/4 teaspoons), and the recipe's liquid comes to about 2 1/4 cups, so expect a firm set. Sprinkle it over the cold water rather than dumping it in a heap, and give it the full five minutes.
- An hour is optimisticA loaf pan of this depth needs three to four hours in the refrigerator to set firmly enough to slice cleanly. Overnight is better. The original's "electrical refrigerator" was a selling point in the period, not a special appliance.
- Cooked hamUse a firm cooked ham, minced or finely diced, not deli slices, which turn pasty. A cup is about 5 oz.
- Season past the saltChilled gelatine mutes flavour badly. Taste the liquid before it sets and add pepper, a little mustard, or a spoonful of vinegar or lemon juice; a teaspoon of salt alone will read as flat once cold.
- UnmouldingRinse the pan in cold water before lining it with the egg slices, or brush it very lightly with neutral oil. To turn out, dip the base in hot water for ten seconds and invert onto a chilled platter.
- ServingSix small servings as a luncheon course, with salad greens and mayonnaise or a mustard dressing. It slices best straight from the refrigerator and should not sit out long on a warm table.
Moulded meat and gelatine loaves were the backbone of the American ladies' luncheon from roughly the 1910s through the 1950s, and books of "bridge party menus" leaned on them heavily: they were made in advance, sliced to a uniform prettiness, and needed no carving in front of guests. Powdered gelatine sold in pre-measured envelopes made the technique available to any cook, replacing the long labour of boiling calves' feet for stock jelly, and manufacturers pushed it hard with pamphlet recipes. The reference here to an "electrical refrigerator" dates the book neatly: mechanical home refrigeration was still new enough in the 1920s and 1930s to be worth naming in the instructions, and dishes that depended on reliable cold were part of how the appliance was sold.