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Deviled Ham
Cut some thin slices of ham, spread them with mustard mixed with oil and vinegar, place them in a baking dish and cook in the oven. Boil some potatoes, mash, put a mound of them on a dish, arrange the pieces of cooked ham against the mound, and serve. Tartar sauce is sometimes served with this dish.
This is "deviled" in the old sense of the word — a sharp mustard coating and a blast of heat — not the potted pink spread sold in tins under the same name. The ham is already cured and cooked, so the oven is doing nothing but heating it through and setting the crust.
- The hinge: keep the slices thick enough to surviveOscar says thin slices, but paper-thin deli ham will curl and dry out in a few minutes. Cut about 1/4 inch, or ask for slices that thickness at the counter.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given at all; the instruction is simply to cook in the oven. A hot oven, around 425F, for 8 to 10 minutes is a workable modern reading: it gives the mustard a chance to brown before the ham dries.
- The devil mixtureA workable proportion is 2 tablespoons prepared English or Dijon mustard, 1 tablespoon oil and 2 teaspoons vinegar, whisked to a loose paste. It should coat, not run off. Cayenne is common in other deviled dishes, though Oscar's version relies on mustard, oil and vinegar only.
- Ham of the periodCured ham of the period was generally drier, saltier and firmer than the wet-cured supermarket product. Modern ham holds more water, so pat the slices dry before spreading the mustard or it will slide.
- The potato moundMash needs to hold its shape as a standing cone with slices leaned against it. Keep it stiff — no more than a couple of tablespoons of hot milk and a knob of butter per pound of potato — and season firmly, since it is the only mild thing on the plate.
- Tartar sauceNot a modern pairing, but the recipe itself offers it, and a cold, sharp caper-and-pickle emulsion suits the mustard. Make it thick so it does not flood the potato.
- YieldTwo slices per person, so about a pound of ham and 1 1/2 lb potatoes serves four as a lunch or supper dish.
"Deviling" — coating a cooked meat with mustard, cayenne and something sharp, then browning it hard — was a standard nineteenth-century way to use up cold roast or boiled meat. The name is generally traced to the idea of infernal heat from the pepper and mustard, in use in English cookery from the late eighteenth century. Its appearance in a Waldorf-Astoria book is a reminder that a grand hotel kitchen still had to deal with cooked meat left over, and that the answer was the same one a thrifty household would reach: mustard, high heat, and a mound of potato to make it a meal.