No. 1794

Kernel of Ham a la Biarritz

Noix de Jambon a la Biarritz

A kernel of ham is sufficient for eight persons. Soak it for eight hours in cold water, pare lightly and wrap up in a small cloth; put it into a saucepan with plenty of cold water and bring the liquid slowly to a boil; remove the saucepan to the corner of the range, so that the liquid simmers on one side only, it taking in all about two to three hours according to the size. Leave it in the water half an hour before serving, then drain, suppress the rind, trim the meat and fat carefully and dress it on a risot prepared as follows: Fry colorless two spoonfuls of onions, add a quarter of a pound of unwashed but clean rice, and warm it with the onions; wet it to three times its heighth with stock (No.194a), boil and let cook in the oven without disturbing whatever until all the liquid is absorbed, then stir in a coffeespoonful of prepared red pepper (No. 168). Have six scalded tomatoes, twenty-four cooked mushroom heads, and sixteen small Chipolata sausages fried in butter (No. 657). When the rice becomes dry, pour over it four ounces of hazelnut butter (No. 567). Drain the ham, pare and glaze it over with a brush; lay the rice on the bottom of a dish, the ham on top and surround with the sausages and mushroom heads stewed in cream, placing santed sweet Spanish peppers, and the scalded tomatoes cut in two, pressed and fried in butter at the ends. A Madeira sauce (No. 492), should be served separately.

← No. 1793 Pigs' Heads with Puree of Split Green Peas Pork No. 1795 Kernel of Pork a la Cavour and with Noodles— →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a numbered reference book at hand; several of the cross-references hide the parts that matter most. The dish is a poached ham leg muscle on a baked pilaf, with a Basque-style garnish.

What a noix de jambon isThe noix is the rounded inner muscle of the ham leg, cut from a raw brine- or dry-cured ham; Ranhofer says only that one piece serves eight. Ask a butcher for a piece of uncooked cured ham leg; a supermarket ready-to-eat ham has already been cooked and cannot be treated this way.
The eight-hour soakThis is desalting, not tenderising, and it assumes a heavily salted nineteenth-century cure. Change the water two or three times. If your ham is only lightly brined the soak can drop to two or three hours, and a fully cooked ham needs none at all.
Never let it boilKeep it below a rolling boil -- The hinge of the recipe. Ranhofer brings the water slowly up to a boil and then moves the pot so that it simmers on one side only: a lazy bubble at the edge, water somewhere near 180F. A sustained hard boil squeezes cured pork into strings. Pull it at an internal temperature of 150-155F, which on a small piece may come nearer the two hours than the three he allows, then let it rest in its liquid the half hour he asks for.
"Risot"An oven pilaf, not risotto. A quarter pound of rice is about 2/3 cup; "wet it to three times its heighth" means stock standing three times as deep as the rice in the pan, which is generous for absorption. Ranhofer specifies neither temperature nor time, only that it cooks in the oven undisturbed until the liquid is absorbed; a moderate oven will do. "Unwashed but clean" means do not rinse the starch away.
Hazelnut butterRanhofer's hazelnut butter is almost certainly beurre noisette, butter cooked to a hazelnut colour, rather than butter made from hazelnuts; his No. 567 would confirm it. Four ounces poured over the finished rice; a nut paste would be wrong.
Prepared red pepperHis No. 168 is a red pepper preparation in the paprika family. A coffeespoonful is about half a teaspoon; sweet Spanish paprika with a pinch of cayenne is the closest modern reading.
Garnish and glaze"Santed" is evidently a typo for sauted. Chipolatas are thin fresh pork sausages; sixteen small ones and twenty-four mushroom caps come to two sausages and three mushrooms a head for the stated eight. Note that the sausages and mushrooms are stewed in cream. "Glaze it over with a brush" means brushing the pared ham with meat glaze or reduced cooking liquid; Ranhofer gives no further detail.
Scalded tomatoesScalded here means blanched and skinned. Halve, press out the seeds and juice, then fry cut side down in butter so they hold shape at the ends of the platter.

A Little History

The name points to Biarritz, the Basque town on the Bay of Biscay that became a fashionable resort under the Second Empire, when Napoleon III and Eugenie built there. In restaurant French of the period a Biarritz garnish generally means the produce of that corner of the southwest: sweet peppers, tomatoes, small sausages. The pairing with ham sits well with the region, whose great cured product is the ham of Bayonne, a few miles away on the Adour, and a dish of ham dressed on a red-tinted rice with peppers reads as a dining-room compliment to the Basque country. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete working system rather than a book to read straight through, which is why this entry sends you off to numbered entries for the stock, the pepper preparation, the sausages, the browned butter and the Madeira sauce. Soaking and slow poaching were the standard treatment for a salt-cured leg, the cures of the period generally being saltier than what is sold today.