Plain Fried Ham
Cut a thin slice from the center of a ham and gash the fat on the edge in several places; put in hot frying pan, brown quickly on one side, then turn and brown lightly on the other side. Then cook very slowly until tender. Apples cored and sliced but not peeled may be fried in the ham fat and served with the ham.
A three-line recipe that assumes a whole country-cured ham on the pantry hook. The main adjustment is the ham itself, since most supermarket ham is already fully cooked.
- What "a ham" means hereThe direction to cook slowly until tender suggests an uncooked cured ham, sliced at home rather than bought ready to eat. A modern fully cooked ham steak only needs browning on both sides and warming through, two to three minutes a side.
- Thickness"A thin slice from the center" is not defined in the book; a quarter to a half inch is a workable reading. Thinner than a quarter inch will dry out during the slow phase; thicker than three-quarters wants a lid and a spoonful of water.
- Why you gash the fatThe rind and fat band shrink faster than the lean and will curl the slice off the pan floor. Cuts every inch or so through the fat to the edge of the lean keep it flat and in contact with the heat.
- The hinge: two heats, not oneBrown hard first to set the crust, then drop the heat right down. Ham held at a high heat turns stringy and salty-tasting because the muscle tightens and squeezes out moisture; the slow finish is what makes it tender.
- SaltOld-style country ham can be aggressively salty. If it is a genuine dry-cured slice, soaking an hour in cold water or milk and patting dry before frying is the traditional remedy. No extra salt goes in the pan.
- The applesFirm tart apples work best — anything that holds shape rather than collapsing. Leaving the skin on, as directed, is what keeps the rings intact in the fat. Cook them after the ham comes out, in the rendered fat, four to six minutes until just translucent at the edges.
- Fat in the panA lean center-cut slice may not release enough fat to fry apples in. Add a teaspoon of butter or oil rather than raising the heat to force the rendering.
- YieldOne centre slice serves one or two, depending on how large and thick it is. The fried apples are the only accompaniment the recipe offers.
The Metropolitan Cook Book was given away by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company to its policyholders — one of a genre of free, plainly written household manuals issued by insurers, gas companies and flour millers in the early twentieth century, aimed at the ordinary urban and small-town kitchen rather than the trained cook. The recipe reflects that audience: no quantities, no timings, just the sequence of moves someone half-remembers from home. Ham fried with apples in its own fat is an old pairing across the American upland South and the Pennsylvania and mid-Atlantic farm kitchens, where a cured ham hung available all year and apples kept in the cellar through winter; the fat that renders out of a salt-cured slice is the cooking medium and the sauce at once, which is the sort of economy these free booklets were quietly built around.