Boned Ham
Having soaked a well-cured ham in tepid water over night, boil it till perfectly tender, putting it on in warm water; take up in a wooden tray, let cool, remove bone carefully, press the ham again into shape, return to boiling liquor, remove pot from fire, and let the ham remain in it till cold. Cut across and serve cold. - Miss L. L. Richmond.
A method rather than a formula: the point is that the ham sets into a solid, sliceable block once the bone is out and the meat cools under its own pressure. Everything else is timing.
- The hinge: bone it warm, cool it pressedThe ham must be hot enough to release the bone cleanly but cool enough to handle; the recipe only says to take it up in a tray and let it cool, which for a large ham means a fair while. Reshape it snugly, wrap tightly or weight it in a loaf pan or terrine, and let it set fully before slicing, or it will crumble.
- "A well-cured ham" is not what you buy nowThis means a dry-salt-cured country ham, hard and intensely salty, of the kind still sold in Virginia and Kentucky. The overnight soak in tepid water is to draw out salt. A modern wet-cured supermarket ham is already mild and wet and needs no soaking at all.
- "Boil" means simmerHold the water at 180-185F, barely trembling. A true rolling boil tightens the muscle fibers and squeezes out moisture, leaving the meat stringy. Start in warm water as directed — a cold-water start prolongs cooking without benefit.
- Timing and donenessFigure 20 to 25 minutes per pound for a country ham, but judge by an instant-read thermometer in the thickest part: 155-160F for a cured ham, and the bone should wiggle freely. A 12-lb ham takes four to five hours.
- Cooling in the liquorLeaving the ham in its cooking water until cold means many hours drifting through the temperature range where bacteria multiply. Follow the recipe as far as taking it up and boning it while still warm, then press it and refrigerate rather than returning it to the liquor to sit until cold; the flavor gain from an overnight sit is not worth it.
- The wooden trayAny large rimmed platter or roasting pan will do. What matters is that it catches the considerable liquid the ham releases and gives you room to work at the bone with a boning knife.
- Save the liquorIf the ham was a genuine country ham, the cooking water will be far too salty for soup. Taste it before you commit it to anything; from a mild modern ham it makes a serviceable base for beans or greens.
- YieldA 10- to 14-lb ham boned and pressed feeds twenty or more as a cold cut, and keeps several days wrapped in the refrigerator.
Boning and pressing a boiled ham was one common way to turn an awkward bone-in cut into something that could be sliced thin and evenly for a cold table — the ham loaf or "pressed ham" of the nineteenth-century sideboard, sold at delicatessen counters into living memory. The Dixie Cook Book (first published in the 1880s) is full of contributions signed with a name and initials like this one, gathered from Southern households where a dry-salt-cured ham hanging in the smokehouse was among the year's most valuable pieces of meat and was often cooked whole, then eaten cold over many days. The overnight soak is a reminder of how much salt those hams carried: curing was preservation first and seasoning second, and drawing the salt back out with water was simply part of cooking. Compilations of this sort circulated widely in reprints, and versions of the same technique turn up in other regional books of the period.