No. 2558

Ham Pie

Pate de Jambon

Select a fresh, smoked ham, detach the kernel and under kernel; free these meats from their hard parts and cut them into inch and a half squares: if the meat be very salty it will require unsalting either in water or milk for a few hours before cutting up; lard each piece with a bit of truffle, passing it through from one side to the other. Melt half a pound of lard and when hot add to the squares of ham and fry for a few moments only. Prepare a chopped forcemeat (No. 65); mix in four ounces of chopped truffle parings, pound the whole and add half a pound of lean and finely chopped cooked ham, and half a pound of fat pork cut in small three-sixteenths inch squares; season with red and white pepper, nutmeg and a little salt. Line a cold pie mold with short paste (No. 135), cover the bottom and sides of this with a layer of the prepared hash and fill the center, alternating the squares of ham with another layer of the hash; finish by giving it a dome form on top and cover with bards of fat pork; moisten the inside of the crest with a brush, then add a layer of paste; form this into a pretty crest, pinch the top and sides, egg over twice and range a puff paste (No. 146) cover over the whole, having it only a quarter of an inch thick; egg this twice also, score the entire surface and form a chimney in the center of the paste. Bake for three hours to three hours and a half. Should the pie brown too quickly cover over with strong, wetted paper. Two hours after removing it from the oven pour sufficient good jelly (No. 103) through the chimney to fill it well.

← No. 2557 Goose Pie a la Adolphe Hardy—Fillets Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2559 Hare Pie in a Dish →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a raised cold pâté en croûte from Ranhofer's Delmonico's kitchen, built to be sliced on a buffet rather than served hot. Nearly everything about it depends on two things: a raw (not cooked) smoked ham, and a slow enough oven that three hours does not burn the pastry.

The hinge: bake low and shield earlyRanhofer gives no temperature, as was usual for the period. A moderate oven of about 325F for the full three to three and a half hours is a reasonable modern reading: the crust is thick and the load is dense, and anything hotter sets the pastry long before the center is done. His "strong, wetted paper" can be replaced with a wet parchment or foil tent — put it on as soon as the top has colored, not after.
"Fresh, smoked ham"This most likely means a raw smoked ham — an uncooked, dry-salted, smoked leg such as country ham — rather than the wet-cured cooked ham at the deli counter, though the wording is ambiguous. If you substitute cooked ham the squares may be dry and stringy after three hours. Cook to 155-160F at the center on an instant-read thermometer.
Kernel and under kernelThe noix and sous-noix: the rounded cushion muscle of the ham and the smaller muscle beneath it. Any butcher can point them out on a whole leg; from a boneless piece, just take the solid lean center and discard sinew and the hard outer edge.
UnsaltingCountry hams and older dry cures are far saltier than modern ham. Soak the cut lean in water or milk for several hours, changing it once, then taste a small fried piece before you season the forcemeat — the pâté is salted again later and it is easy to overshoot.
The cross-referencesNo. 65 is Ranhofer's chopped forcemeat; No. 135 is a short paste stiff enough to stand as a mold lining; No. 146 is puff paste; No. 103 is a clarified meat aspic. Any firm hot-water or lard-based raised-pie dough will serve for the lining, and a good commercial aspic powder made up at double strength for the jelly.
Truffles and paringsFour ounces of chopped truffle parings was a byproduct of a kitchen that peeled truffles daily. A modern equivalent is about 1 oz of chopped preserved truffle plus its juice, or, more honestly, chopped dried porcini rehydrated in Madeira — different, but it fills the same aromatic role. The larding strips of truffle passed through each square are cosmetic as well as flavoring: they show as dark dots in the slice.
Bards and the chimneyBards of fat pork are thin sheets of back fat, sold as barding fat or cut from fresh fatback; sliced pancetta or unsmoked streaky bacon substitutes. The chimney must stay open the whole bake — roll a small tube of foil or parchment and set it in the hole so escaping steam does not lift the puff paste lid.
The jelly, and why two hours laterAs the pie cools the meat contracts and leaves voids under the crust. Pour the aspic in when it is barely warm and just fluid, about two hours out of the oven, so it runs into the gaps without melting the fat or cooking the pastry. Then refrigerate overnight; the pie is meant to be cut cold, and it slices cleanly only once the jelly has set.
Yield and servingThe recipe does not quantify the ham squares or the forcemeat, but this is a large buffet pie meant to be sliced for many. Serve cold with mustard and pickles; it keeps three or four days refrigerated, once cut no more than two.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a working record of that kitchen, and its long chapters of cold pieces reflect the era's great strength: the buffet froid, where whole hams, galantines and raised pies stood glazed and garnished for hours of service. A pâté de jambon like this one belongs to the French charcutier's tradition of pâté en croûte, in which the pastry is structural — a mold that is baked and filled with aspic to exclude air. The alternating pattern of larded ham squares set in forcemeat exists for the cut surface: nineteenth-century cold cookery was judged on the appearance of the slice, and truffle inserted crosswise through each piece guaranteed a decorative section wherever the knife fell. That the recipe assumes a raw smoked ham, house-rendered lard, sheets of barding fat and a daily surplus of truffle peelings is a fair measure of how the staff and larder of a great restaurant differed from a household one.