No. 2524

English Ham with Jelly

Jambon Anglais a la Gelee

If freshly salted and smoked it is unnecessary to soak it; simply wash off in warm water, pare and saw the handle bone short, then put it into a large vessel, cover with cold water and bring this to a boil, adding aromatic herbs; close the lid and leave to boil for three hours slowly, but continuously and regularly. Remove the vessel from the fire and allow the ham to cool off in this liquor. (A ham is cooked when the meat on the handle bone becomes soft.) Drain it off, suppress the thick end bone and a part of the rind, leaving the leg end covered; pare and remove all the upper part to cut up into even slices. Lay the ham on an oval wooden board covered with white paper and fastened on a dish, dress the cut slices in a circle on top of the ham and fill the center with chopped jelly; glaze the rind and the remaining whole piece with a brush and surround the base with a string of thick jelly pushed through a pocket; dress fine triangles of jelly (No. 2442) all around; fasten a jelly-decorated hatelet in the opposite end from the handle, slanting it outward (see drawing, Fig. 501).

← No. 2523 Ham Truffled a la Florian Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2525 Hams of Chicken with Zampino →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer is describing a cold buffet centerpiece rather than a weeknight dinner: a whole bone-in ham, simmered, cooled in its own liquor, then carved and rebuilt on its own bone with aspic. Most of the work is in the presentation, and most of the translation needed is vocabulary.

The hinge: cool it in the liquorLifting the ham out hot is the one thing that ruins it. Leaving it to cool submerged lets the meat reabsorb moisture and firm up so it slices cleanly for the overlapping circle. Plan on several hours, and refrigerate once the pot is no longer warm to the touch.
What kind of ham this is"Freshly salted and smoked" means a dry-cured, uncooked ham of the period, which is why Ranhofer says soaking may be skipped. A modern supermarket "ham" is wet-cured and already fully cooked, and needs no three-hour boil. If you want this dish, look for an uncooked bone-in country or dry-cured ham, and taste the soaking water for salt before deciding whether to soak it overnight.
Three hours is not the real measureThe recipe never states a weight, so the three hours should be read as a rough guide for a whole ham rather than a fixed figure. Judge by his test - the meat at the shank goes soft - or by an instant-read thermometer in the thickest part away from bone, which is the modern equivalent. "Slowly, but continuously and regularly" means a bare shiver of a simmer, not a rolling boil, which would shred the outer inch.
Handle bone, thick end bone, rindThe handle bone is the shank, sawn short to trim the joint down for the pot and the platter. The thick end bone is the aitchbone at the butt, removed after cooking so the upper meat lifts off in one piece for slicing; the hatelet goes into the end opposite the handle, not the shank. The rind stays on the leg end purely for looks, and gets glazed.
"Jelly" means aspicThroughout this section jelly is clarified, gelatin-set meat stock, not preserves. Chopped jelly is set aspic diced fine with a wet knife; the "string of thick jelly pushed through a pocket" is aspic piped from a pastry bag just as it begins to set. Triangles are cut from a shallow sheet of it.
HateletAn hatelet (or attelet) is an ornamental silver skewer, threaded with truffle, crayfish or a glazed cockscomb and stuck in for height. It is decoration only and is pulled out before serving; a plain skewer or nothing at all loses nothing but period flourish.
Aromatic herbsThe recipe specifies nothing beyond "aromatic herbs," leaving the choice to the cook; a bouquet along the lines of bay, thyme and parsley stems would suit. Salt is unnecessary given the cure.
Yield and serviceA whole ham dressed this way is a buffet piece for a large party rather than a plated portion count. It is meant to be set out cold and carved from, with the sliced circle on top eaten first.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer spent more than thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially the house's working archive - some thousands of numbered items, cross-referenced by number the way this one points to No. 2442. The "Garnishings for Cold Dishes" section belongs to the garde manger, the cold kitchen, whose job at a nineteenth-century banquet was to produce showpieces that sat on a buffet under aspic glaze looking untouched for hours. The label anglais may nod to the period's regard for English cured hams, though the technique of boning, reslicing and rebuilding a ham on its own shank with piped aspic and a decorated skewer is French service. The style is often traced to Carême's earlier grand-buffet manner, and it survived in hotel work well into the twentieth century before cold-table cookery contracted to something a good deal plainer.