No. 2522

Ham Glazed with Sugar

Jambon Glace au Sucre

Hams are usually purchased already salted and smoked, for the pickling only succeeds when a large quantity are done at one time. The most essential point to observe is to have them recently smoked, of a young pig of a good breed. The easiest way to cook a ham is as follows: Cut off the end handle of a ten-pound ham, shorten the loin bone, suppress a thin layer of the outside of the ham that is oversmoked, and then soak it for three hours in water; afterward place it in a large soup-pot or sauce-pan, covering with cold water; stand the vessel on the fire and bring it gradually to a boil, then drain off this water, and replace it by tepid water; add some whole spices and aromatics. It must cook about fifteen minutes for each pound, or two and a half hours in all. Take the vessel from off the fire, and leave the ham to cool in its liquid. Remove, drain thoroughly, lift off the rind, and pare nicely, keeping it a pretty shape; bestrew with fine sugar, and stand it on a baking tin; glaze to a fine color in a hot oven, remove, and when cold dress it on a bread foundation covered with ravigote butter (No. 583) and chopped parsley; surround the bottom of the dish with chopped jelly and cut-out croutons (for these see No. 2442).

← No. 2521 Ham Decorated a la Gatti Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2523 Ham Truffled a la Florian →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's method is a two-stage one: a long, gentle poach to cook and de-salt a hard-cured smoked ham, then a brief sugar glaze for colour. Most of what needs translating is the ham itself, since the joint he assumes is not the one sold today.

The ham he meansA ten-pound dry-salted, recently smoked raw ham — the closest modern equivalent is an uncooked country ham or a raw smoked gammon. Supermarket "ham" in the United States is wet-cured and already fully cooked, so the soaking and the two-and-a-half-hour poach are unnecessary and will leave it dry and stringy.
Soak and first blanchThe three-hour soak and the discarded first water are both salt-management steps, not cooking steps. With a genuinely hard-cured ham, extend the soak overnight in the refrigerator with a change or two of water; with anything mildly cured, skip both.
Never actually boil it"Bring it gradually to a boil" applies only to the first water that gets thrown away. The cooking water should be held at a bare shiver, around 180F, with the surface barely trembling. A rolling boil tightens the muscle fibres and squeezes out the moisture the long cooking is meant to keep in.
Time versus temperatureFifteen minutes to the pound is a reasonable estimate, but go by an instant-read thermometer in the thickest part away from the bone: 150-155F for a raw cured ham that will be served cold. The ham continues to cook as it cools in the liquid, which is the point of leaving it there.
Cooling in the liquorThe recipe is explicit that the ham cools in its cooking liquid rather than being lifted out hot, and the result is generally held to be a moister, cleaner-slicing joint. Allow several hours, and refrigerate the pot rather than leaving it out overnight.
"Fine sugar" and a hot ovenFine sugar is caster or superfine — it melts before it scorches. The book does not say what "hot oven" means in degrees; in modern terms something around 425-450F is the usual reading, and the glaze needs only a few minutes with an eye on it — the fat surface will go from amber to burnt quickly. A brief pass under a broiler does the same job with more control.
The dressing is scaffoldingThe bread foundation, or socle, is a carved block of stale bread masked with ravigote butter (No. 583) — a display plinth, not food. Chopped jelly means set aspic chopped to a glitter, and the cut-out croutons of No. 2442 are shaped aspic or fried bread. All of it can be dropped without touching the dish.
YieldA ten-pound bone-in ham, carved thin for a cold table, serves twenty-five to thirty as part of a buffet, and rather fewer if it is the centrepiece.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's summary of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry sits among the garnishings for cold dishes — the section devoted to the cold buffet, where a glazed ham was as much architecture as dinner. The opening remark that hams are bought already salted and smoked, "for the pickling only succeeds when a large quantity are done at one time," is the reason Ranhofer himself gives: curing on a small scale was not worth the trouble. Sugar-glazing a boiled ham is older than the book. Ranhofer's contribution here is the presentation, the bread socle masked with green herb butter and ringed with chopped aspic, which belongs to the elaborate pièce froide tradition of the period, when a cold table was expected to be looked at before it was eaten.