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Fried Ham
Cut off a thick slice of ham, place it in a saucepan over the fire in sufficient cold water to cover, and let the water come to the boil. Pour it off, put the ham over the fire and fry slowly until it is brown on both sides. Then season with pepper, and serve. Eggs are usually served with fried ham. They may be fried in the same pan or separately in sufficient fat to prevent burning, seasoned with pepper and salt, and placed round the dish and over the ham.
A method built for the dry-cured country ham of 1896, not for the wet-cured supermarket steak. The parboiling step is the whole point, and whether you need it depends entirely on which ham you buy.
- The blanch is for salt, not safetyBringing the slice up in cold water and pouring it off draws out the heavy salt of a dry-cured, long-hung ham. A modern brine-injected ham steak is already mild; blanching it only makes it watery. Skip the step unless you are working with genuine country ham.
- Cut thicknessThe recipe says only "a thick slice" and gives no measure. In practice something in the region of half an inch to three-quarters works: thinner and it curls and dries before it colours; much thicker and the outside is leather before the centre warms through.
- "Over the fire" and "slowly"Medium heat on the stovetop, turning once; the recipe gives no time, but a few minutes a side is enough. The ham is cured and has been through the boiling water, so the frying is largely for browning and rendering.
- No added fat at firstStart the slice dry in the pan and let its own fat render out. If the ham is very lean, a teaspoon of butter or oil will keep it from sticking, but a well-marbled slice supplies plenty for the eggs afterwards.
- Pepper onlyThe ham is seasoned with pepper alone, while the eggs get pepper and salt. A blanched cured ham carries enough salt of its own, and the eggs pick up more from the pan drippings.
- Frying the eggs in the panPour off all but a thin film of the rendered fat, or the whites spread and fry crisp at the edges. If the drippings have caught and darkened, wipe the pan and use fresh butter.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield. A single thick slice will serve two in cut portions, or one as a full plate with two eggs.
Ham and eggs was already an American institution by the time Oscar Tschirky put it in print, and its appearance in a Waldorf book says more about the hotel than about the dish: the Waldorf served breakfast to guests who wanted the plain food of home cooked properly, and Oscar's volume is full of these unglamorous entries alongside the elaborate ones. The parboiling instruction suggests something about the recipe's era. Nineteenth-century American ham was dry-salted and hung for months, often to the point that a slice was inedible without soaking or scalding; the tender, mildly salted, water-added ham steak is a product of twentieth-century brine injection and refrigerated distribution. The finish is restraint itself: pepper and nothing else.