Home › Sandwiches › Ham-and-Tongue Sandwiches
Ham-and-Tongue Sandwiches
CHOP two parts of cold tongue and one part of cold ham (one-fourth as much fat ham as lean) very fine; pound in a mortar, and season with paprica and a little mixed mustard. Spread butter on one piece of bread, the meat mixture on the other, and press the two pieces together.
A potted-meat sandwich filling of the kind that turned Sunday's cold joint into Monday's lunch. The whole thing hinges on texture: the meat has to be worked to a true paste, or the filling crumbles out of the bread at the first bite.
- The pounding is the pointChopping alone leaves the meat loose. Pounding in a mortar breaks the fibers and the ham fat binds them, giving a spreadable paste. A food processor does the same job in short pulses; stop while the mixture still has a little grain rather than turning it to a smooth emulsion.
- The proportionsTwo parts tongue to one part ham, and of that ham, one part fat to four parts lean ("one-fourth as much fat ham as lean"). The recipe does not say whether the parts are by weight or volume. The fat is not incidental — it is what binds the paste, and trimming it out gives a dry, sandy filling.
- Cold tongueCold tongue, usually beef and often cured, was a routine larder item in this period; today it usually means buying a whole tongue, simmering it three hours or so, peeling it while warm, and pressing it cold. Delis that carry it sell it sliced, which is fine here since the meat is being chopped anyway.
- "Paprica"Simply paprika, an older spelling. Use sweet Hungarian rather than smoked; smoked paprika was not what a kitchen of this period meant by the word, and it will bulldoze the tongue.
- "Mixed mustard"Mustard flour mixed to a paste with water or vinegar — in other words, ordinary prepared mustard. A smooth English or Dijon suits the filling better than a coarse grain, which fights the paste texture.
- Butter on one side onlyAs written, butter goes on one slice and meat on the other. The butter is there to seal the crumb against moisture from the filling; if the sandwiches are being made more than an hour ahead, butter both slices.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no yield; a cup of chopped meat will fill roughly six to eight sandwiches on thin white bread. A filling of this kind suits tea and picnic service — crusts off, cut in triangles or fingers — though the recipe does not specify.
- KeepingCooked meat pounded fine has a great deal of exposed surface. Keep the paste refrigerated and use it within a day or two rather than treating it as a shelf-stable potted meat, which would have required a seal of clarified butter.
This belongs to the large family of Victorian and Edwardian "potted" meats — cooked meat pounded with fat and seasoning until it could be spread — which existed because a household that roasted or boiled a large joint had to find uses for it for days afterward. Tongue and ham were natural partners: both were commonly sold cold and ready to eat, and their flavors are close enough to blend but distinct enough that the mixture tastes of more than one thing. Janet McKenzie Hill was the founding editor of the Boston Cooking School Magazine. The recipe belongs to the period when the sandwich was moving from a working man's portable meal to a fixture of the tea table and the ladies' luncheon, which may be why the instructions insist on chopping "very fine" and pounding smooth. The paprika and mustard answer the blandness of cold cured meat.