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To Glaze a Ham
Meat glaze may be defined as beef tea boiled down till it is as thick as syrup, and like gum when quite cold. It may be obtained in quantity by boiling down rich stock or stewed meat liquor.
To glaze a ham, after baking it brown give it two or three coats with a brush dipped in glaze, drying it in a warm place after the application. Another way, useful when there is no glaze ready, is, after baking the ham brown, cover it with all the granulated sugar that can be made to sick to it with pressure of the hands. The ham should, however, be first freed as much as possible from grease by means of a dry cloth. Put the sugar coated ham back in the oven and watch it till the sugar has become caramel brown all over alike.
This is a finishing technique rather than a full recipe, and it assumes a ham that has already been cured, soaked and cooked through by boiling or long baking. Both methods here are about the last twenty minutes.
- The ham is already cookedThe recipe begins after the ham has been baked brown. Hams of this kind were salt-cured and often soaked and boiled before baking, though this text does not say so. Treat the glazing as a browning step on a ham that is already hot; a modern fully cooked ham need only be reheated to about 140F internally before you begin.
- What meat glaze isGlace de viande: strong stock reduced by roughly nine tenths until it coats a spoon like syrup and sets rubbery-firm when cold. A quart of good brown stock yields a few tablespoons. It keeps refrigerated for weeks and is sold commercially in tubs and cubes if you would rather not make it.
- "Beef tea"An old term for concentrated beef broth, once made for invalids. Any well-reduced, unsalted brown stock will do; use unsalted, since reduction concentrates salt and a cured ham brings plenty of its own.
- Drying between coats"a warm place" is not defined in the book; a very low oven, the open oven door, or a spot near the stove will serve. Each coat should go tacky before the next goes on. Two or three coats build a dark lacquer.
- Degrease before sugaringThis is the hinge of the second method. Sugar will not adhere to a greasy surface, and any fat left on will fry rather than caramelise. Blot the whole surface with a dry cloth or paper towel, working the sugar on with the heel of the hand while the ham is warm.
- Caramelising the sugarThe book says only to put it back in the oven and watch it; a fairly hot oven, or a broiler with the rack lowered, will do the work. "Watch it" is meant literally: the sugar can pass from pale amber to burnt quickly, and the thin edges and shank colour first. Turn the pan rather than leaving it to take the heat unevenly.
- ScoringNot mentioned here, but cutting the fat in a diamond pattern before either glaze gives the coating something to hold and lets rendered fat escape instead of pooling under the crust.
- YieldA bone-in half ham of 7-8 lb serves 12-16. Let it rest 20 minutes after glazing; the caramel firms as it cools and slices more cleanly.
Meat glaze was one of the fixed points of the professional nineteenth-century kitchen, a byproduct of the stockpot that never went out and a way of putting shine and colour on anything cold or roasted. Escoffier and others of his era treat it as routine for galantines, tongues and joints. The sugar method here is the domestic workaround, suited to cooks who might or might not have a stockpot going. Hams of this period were often saltier and drier than a modern wet-cured one, and the brown-sugar-and-clove hams still baked at holidays follow the same pattern.