No. 1790

Ham, with Carrots, Stuffed Tomatoes or Mushrooms-Braised and Glazed

Jambon Braise et Glace aux Carottes, Tomates ou Champignons Farcis

Have the ham of a young pig freshly salted and smoked; saw off the handle straight, also the hip bone; pare the meats and fat slightly, and lay it to soak in cold water for twelve hours, then drain, scrape well, wash and wrap it in a cloth; lay it in soup-pot with four times its heighth of water, let it come to a boil, then set it on one side to simmer slowly; add to it carrots, onions, cloves, a bunch of parsley garnished with thyme and bay leaf, and half a bottleful of white wine; allow it to boil for three hours, then drain, remove the cloth and cut off the rind. Lay the ham in a low braziere (Fig. 134) with half a bottleful of Madeira wine, a little brandy, and four tablespoonfuls of meat glaze (No. 402); finish cooking it in a slack oven, basting it often, and when the ham is of a fine color, and the liquid reduced, dress and decorate with a frill (No. 10). Strain and reduce the stock with some espagnole sauce (No. 414); cover the bottom of the dish with a third part of this sauce, serve separately the other two-thirds in a sauce-boat.

After the ham has been dressed, surround it with a garnishing of carrots cut into small pear-shape, blanched and cooked in stock (No. 194a), then a little sugar added and fallen to a glaze; pour in a little half-glaze sauce (No. 413), add a piece of butter just when ready to serve.

Stuffed tomatoes (No. 2842), stuffed mushrooms (No. 692), or any other garnishing may be substituted, serving with a separate half-glaze sauce (No. 413) with Madeira.

← No. 1789 Ham, Roasted on the Spit, Madeira Sauce, or Pork No. 1791 Ham with Spinach-Boiled →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer is describing a two-stage treatment of a whole bone-in ham: a long gentle poach in aromatics, then a slow glazing braise in Madeira. The hinge is the first stage — the pot must never boil hard, or the meat pulls dry and stringy before the collagen has given way.

The ham itself"The ham of a young pig freshly salted and smoked" means a raw, salt- or brine-cured, smoked ham, closer to a raw country ham than to supermarket ham; no weight is given. Most ham sold today is fully cooked and mildly cured; if you use one, the twelve-hour soak and the three-hour simmer are both unnecessary and ruinous.
Twelve hours' soakingThe soak drew out salt from a heavily cured leg. Judge it by the ham you actually have — a modern mild cure needs none, a true dry-cured country ham may want a full day with a change or two of water.
"Four times its height of water"A deep pot with water standing far above the ham, not merely covering it, since a leg loses liquid to evaporation over three hours. Half a bottleful, reckoned on a modern 750 ml bottle, is about 375 ml, in both the poaching and the braising stage.
"Let it boil for three hours"Read this as a bare simmer, 180-185F, after the initial boil is set aside "to simmer slowly" as the text says. Actual doneness on a raw ham is an internal temperature of about 150-155F at the bone, which on a large leg often takes longer than three hours.
A slack ovenLow, in the region of 250-300F; the book gives no temperature. The braising stage is largely about colour and reduction, though a large leg may still be finishing cooking, so low and slow with frequent basting.
The braziereA low, wide braising pan; any heavy roasting pan or oval Dutch oven that holds the ham with a couple of inches to spare will do, and the frequent basting implies it is left uncovered at this stage. Depth is the enemy here; you want the liquid shallow so it reduces to a syrup you can baste with.
Meat glaze, espagnole, half-glazeGlace de viande is stock reduced to a sticky, near-solid essence; four tablespoons is a lot of it. Espagnole is the old brown mother sauce and demi-glace (half-glaze) is espagnole reduced with more stock. A good reduced brown veal stock, thickened lightly, stands in for all three.
The frill and the carrotsThe paper frill goes on the sawn-off shank bone and is pure Gilded Age table dressing. The carrots are turned into small pear shapes, blanched, cooked in stock, then finished with sugar until the liquid falls to a glaze — a classic carottes glacees, and the sugar goes in near the end, not at the start.
YieldNo yield is given, but a whole bone-in ham on this scale would serve twenty or more, and the recipe plainly assumes a large table.

A Little History

This is No. 1790 in Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium he assembled after some three decades as chef of Delmonico's in New York, and it shows the house method in miniature: nothing stands alone, and the reader is sent off to numbered entries for the glaze, the espagnole, the half-glaze, the stuffed tomatoes, even the paper frill. Braising and glazing a whole ham was a set piece of nineteenth-century French service — the leg is poached to tenderness in an aromatic bath, then lacquered in a reduction of Madeira and meat essence until it takes a mirror finish, and finally set on a platter ringed with turned vegetables. Madeira is often said to have held its place in this kind of cookery long after it faded as a drinking wine in America, valued for the oxidized, nutty depth it lends a reduction. The instruction to saw the shank straight and remove the hip bone is a reminder that a professional kitchen of the period butchered its own meat as a matter of course.