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Stuffed Ham Roll
1 slice ham, 1/4 inch thick 2 cups bread crumbs 1 tablespoon parsley, minced 1 cup tomato juice seasoning Moisten bread crumbs with water, spread over ham, sprinkle parsley over it, then roll up and tie. Put in a closely covered baking dish, add the tomato juice and bake 1 hour in a moderate oven (350 degrees F.).
A single thick ham slice stretched to feed a family, braised in tomato juice. The whole thing turns on two variables the original leaves open: the size of the slice and whether your ham is cured-and-cooked or raw.
- What slice to buyA quarter-inch slice is thin, and its weight depends entirely on the diameter of the ham it comes from; a slice off a small boneless ham will not go far. For a company dinner, ask for a slice cut from a whole bone-in ham and have the bone removed so it rolls cleanly.
- Cooked ham vs. rawNearly all supermarket ham is fully cooked and cured; the hour in the oven is for tenderizing and flavor, not safety. If you have an uncured fresh ham steak, cook to an internal 145F and rest three minutes.
- Bread crumbsThese are soft crumbs torn from day-old bread, not the dry sandy kind in a canister. Two cups of soft crumbs is about three slices of bread. Dry packaged crumbs moistened with water turn to paste.
- "Seasoning"The book assumes salt and pepper. Go very light on salt given the cured ham; pepper freely, and a little dry mustard, sage or grated onion in the crumbs is in period and improves a plain filling.
- Rolling and tyingSpread the crumbs to within half an inch of the edges or they squeeze out. Roll along the long side and tie with cotton kitchen twine at 1 1/2-inch intervals. Rest the roll seam-side down in the dish.
- The covered dish"Closely covered" is the point of the method: the tomato juice steams the ham rather than reducing away. A lid or tight foil is essential, and 350F is the correct moderate oven.
- The sauceOne cup of tomato juice yields a thin pan liquid. Uncover for the last ten minutes, then reduce the juices on the stovetop or thicken with a teaspoon of flour worked into butter.
- YieldTwo servings from an ordinary ham steak, more only if the slice is unusually large. Remove the twine before slicing, and cut the roll into rounds about 3/4 inch thick.
Books labeled "modernistic" in the 1930s were selling efficiency as much as food: streamlined menus, standardized oven temperatures given in degrees rather than as "moderate," and dishes built around the new canned goods. Tomato juice is the tell here. It was marketed as a packaged product from the 1920s onward and moved quickly from a breakfast beverage into the cooking pot, where it did the work of a stock nobody had time to make. The dish itself belongs to an older tradition of stretching meat with bread: one slice of ham, doubled in bulk by a crumb stuffing, sliced into rounds and presented as a roast for company.