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Ham Steaks
Cut some slices of raw ham of moderate thickness and put them into a fryingpan with a little water; let it boil, turn the steaks and continue boiling until dry, sprinkle them with flour, pour over a teacupful of milk, put in a small lump of butter, a teaspoonful of mixed mustard and a little cayenne. When it boils put the ham on a hot dish, pour over the sauce, and serve.
A pan of ham finished in its own mustard cream gravy, written in the compressed shorthand of a professional kitchen. Two details carry the dish: the water is a braising liquid that must be cooked away entirely before the flour goes in, and the ham itself decides how much seasoning the sauce needs.
- "Raw ham"This means uncooked ham — cured and perhaps smoked, but not the fully cooked pink ham sold in supermarkets. A thick slice of country ham or an uncooked bone-in ham steak is the right substitute; "moderate thickness" probably means something in the region of half an inch, though the recipe does not say.
- Salt firstAn uncooked country ham can be aggressively salty. Taste a corner after the water stage and, if needed, discard that first water and add fresh before continuing. The recipe assumes the cook knows the ham; you may not.
- Boil until dryThe point of the water is to cook the ham through gently and draw off some salt. When it has fully evaporated the fat begins to render and the slices brown in the pan. Adding flour to a wet pan gives a pasty sauce, so wait for the dry stage.
- TeacupfulTeacup measures were not standardised in books of this period; reckon on somewhere between about 4 and 6 fl oz. Whole milk is intended; the small lump of butter is perhaps a tablespoon.
- Mixed mustardPrepared mustard made up from powder with water or vinegar — an English-style hot mustard is closest. Dijon works; American yellow mustard is sweeter and milder than what Oscar meant.
- DonenessCook pork to 145F at the centre with a short rest. Cured slices will stay rosy at that temperature, so judge by thermometer rather than colour.
- The sauceSprinkle the flour lightly — a scant tablespoon for a teacupful of milk — and let it cook a moment in the ham fat before the milk goes in, or the gravy tastes raw. It should nap the back of a spoon, no thicker.
- YieldThe recipe gives no number of slices, so yield is open; a teacupful of milk will sauce enough ham for two or so. Scale the milk with the number of slices and keep the pan crowded enough that the liquid does not scorch.
Ham with a mustard-spiked cream gravy belongs to the same family as the milk gravies of English farmhouse cookery: a salty cured slice, a pan deglazed, and a little liquid stretched into sauce for the table. Oscar Tschirky, the maitre d'hotel whose name fronts this 1896 volume, was not a cook by trade, and the book gathers a great deal of plain domestic cooking alongside the hotel's more elaborate offerings his the kind of dish that would have appeared at breakfast or a light supper rather than at a Waldorf banquet. The instruction to buy raw ham is worth noting, since it sets the cook rather than the supplier the task of cooking the meat through.