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Roasted Ham
Choose a small ham, soak it for an hour in fresh water, pare the surface, place it in a large saucepan, and cover with cold water; when boiling move the saucepan to the side of the fire, and let it simmer for three-quarters of an hour; then drain the ham, remove the thighbone, and peel off the rind. Put it in a basin, pour in enough cooked marinade to cover, and let it macerate for about twenty-four hours, with the pan covered. Drain the pan, mask it with a vegetable mirepoix, cover it with two or three buttered sheets of paper, put it on a cradle-spit, and roast before a clear fire, basting now and then with fat. In the course of three-quarters of an hour mix some of the marinade in the drippings, and baste the ham with it. Remove the papers from the ham in another hour's time and roast thirty minutes longer. When cooked take it off the spit and place it on a hot oval dish; strain the stock from the dripping-pan, skim off the fat, reduce some of it to half glaze, mix with it one teacupful of brown sauce, stir it over the fire again for two or three minutes, then pour it over the ham, and serve with vegetable croquettes in a separate dish.
This is a French-service ham: brined pork simmered, boned, steeped in a cooked marinade, then spit-roasted and sauced. The method assumes an open hearth and a saucier's larder, both of which need translating.
- The hinge: the simmer is not the cookingThree-quarters of an hour in barely-moving water is only enough to loosen the rind and thighbone on a small ham. The roasting that follows is what brings it through. If the ham is raw or only partly cured, work to an internal temperature of at least 145F at the thickest point, with a rest, rather than to the clock, and keep the water at a bare shiver throughout, since hard boiling toughens and dries a cured ham.
- Soaking and modern hamsThe hour in fresh water was to draw out salt from a heavily cured, often long-hung ham. A supermarket ham today is wet-cured, mild, and frequently sold fully cooked. If yours is labelled cooked, the whole simmer-and-macerate sequence is beside the point; look for a raw or partly cured bone-in ham of 5-7 lb.
- The cooked marinadeA term left to the reader's professional knowledge: white wine or vinegar with carrot, onion, bay, thyme, peppercorns and cloves, simmered and then cooled completely before use. Pour it on cold, not warm, and give the twenty-four hours' maceration in the refrigerator rather than a covered basin in a pantry.
- Cradle-spit to ovenWithout a hearth and a rotating cradle, roast in a 325F oven on a rack over a dripping pan. The paper-covered stage corresponds to loosely tenting with buttered parchment or foil; uncover for the final half hour to colour the surface.
- Mirepoix as a maskHere the mirepoix is not a flavour base under the meat but a coating pressed onto the ham itself and held in place by the buttered papers. Cut the carrot, onion and celery fine so it clings, and expect to scrape most of it into the dripping pan before saucing.
- Half glaze and brown sauceReduce the strained, skimmed drippings until syrupy and just coating a spoon; that is the half glaze. The teacupful of brown sauce would have been an espagnole; a teacupful in period usage is somewhere between a half and three-quarters of a cup, and a good jarred or homemade demi-glace stands in without embarrassment.
- Buttered paperParchment, buttered on the side that meets the meat. Do not substitute waxed paper, which will not take the heat.
- Timing and yieldTotal oven time runs to about two and a quarter hours as written, but a modern 5-7 lb ham may reach temperature sooner. Serves eight to ten, with the vegetable croquettes served separately as the recipe directs.
Oscar Tschirky came to the Waldorf as maître d'hôtel in 1893 and put his name to a cookbook in 1896, at the moment when French grande cuisine was the unquestioned language of American hotel dining. The recipe reads like a page from a professional's notebook: mirepoix, half glaze, espagnole and a cooked marinade are all assumed knowledge, and the marinating of an already-cured ham before roasting is a classical treatment meant to lift some of the salt and lay wine and aromatics in its place. The cradle-spit — a hinged iron frame that held a joint in front of an open fire and turned it — is a fitting of long standing, still standard equipment in large hotel kitchens even as closed ranges spread through domestic ones.