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Cooked Beef or Ham on Toast
542. A. buttered toast, with cooked ham or beef scraped upon it and fried or browned before the fire, is excellent for breakfast or supper, especially if made with ham.
Or, Take a cold smoked tongue or ham and grate or mince it fine. Mix it with cream and beaten yolk of egg, and give it a simmer of the fire. Toast and slightly butter some bread, lay them on a flat warm dish, and cover thickly with the tongue mixture. Serve very hot.
Two versions of a Victorian savoury: one a dry, grilled version, the other a creamed mixture bound with egg yolk. The second is the one that needs care, since the binding will curdle if it boils.
- The hinge: keep the cream below a simmerYolk-thickened cream splits the moment it approaches the boil. Warm the cream and meat gently, stir in the yolk off the heat, then return it to low heat only until it coats the spoon, around 160-170F.
- "Scraped" meatScraping means dragging a knife blade along the cut face of a joint to shave off soft shreds without fat or sinew. A food processor pulsed briefly, or the fine side of a box grater on well-chilled meat, gives the same texture.
- "Browned before the fire"This means an open hearth or a salamander. Use a grill (broiler) on high with the rack close to the element, one to two minutes, watching it: the meat is already cooked and only needs colour.
- Cold smoked tongueWhole cooked ox tongue is now a butcher or delicatessen order rather than a supermarket item. Thick-cut cooked ham, smoked or unsmoked, or good salt beef, substitutes directly.
- No quantities are givenFor four rounds of toast, work from roughly 6 oz of minced meat, 4 fl oz cream and one yolk. Add the cream by degrees; the mixture should mound on the toast rather than run off it.
- SaltHam and tongue are already well salted, so season only after the mixture is bound. Pepper, a scrape of nutmeg or a little mustard are plausible additions, though the recipe itself specifies none.
- Toast timingToast last and butter thinly. Bread that sits under a wet mixture for more than a minute or two goes limp; the recipe's warm dish and its instruction to serve very hot point the same way.