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Barbacued Ham
Cut liberal slices of cold ham, and fry in their own fat; when done, arrange on a hot dish. Keep warm, while you add to the gravy one teaspoonful made mustard, a good pinch of cayenne, one saltspoon of white sugar and three tablespoonfuls vinegar. Mix these well together, before stirring into the gravy; heat all to a boil, pour over the ham and let it stand covered one minute before sending to the table.
Four times this quantity of dressing to half a pound of ham.
A pan sauce built in the ham fat, not a barbecue in any smoked sense. It comes together in the time it takes the slices to brown, so have the sauce ingredients measured before the ham hits the pan.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. One saltspoon of sugar is a seasoning, not a sweetener — it exists to round off the vinegar.
- Made mustard"Made" mustard means prepared mustard from the jar, mixed and ready, as opposed to dry mustard powder. Any smooth yellow or Dijon-style prepared mustard works; if you only have powder, slake a scant half teaspoon in a little water first.
- The last sentence"Four times this quantity of dressing to half a pound of ham" is genuinely muddled in the original and reads as a scaling note rather than a correction. Taken at face value it gives roughly 4 teaspoons mustard and 12 tablespoons vinegar for half a pound of ham, which is far too sharp. Make the quantities as given in the body of the recipe and add vinegar to taste.
- Rendering the fatCold cooked ham is lean by modern standards and rarely gives up enough fat to fry in. Start the slices in a dry pan over medium heat and add a teaspoon of butter or oil if the pan stays dry, or there will be no gravy to season.
- Don't overcook the hamThe ham is already cooked. A minute or two a side to brown the edges is enough; longer and it dries and toughens, and cured pork turns leathery fast in a hot pan.
- Boiling the sauceBring it just to a boil to take the raw edge off the vinegar, then get it off the heat. Prolonged boiling drives off the vinegar and leaves the cayenne and mustard flat.
- Yield and servingHalf a pound of ham fills two or three sandwiches. Piled on buttered bread or a split roll with the sauce spooned over, the bread soaks it up; on a plate, as the recipe itself directs, it serves two with the sauce as a glaze.
Nineteenth-century American "barbacued" or "barbecued" meat in a cookbook of this kind often meant nothing cooked over wood — the word could attach itself to the sharp, sweet-hot sauce rather than the fire, and other recipes of the period for barbecued ham, mutton and rabbit are likewise pan dishes finished with mustard, vinegar and cayenne. The combination is essentially a thinned mustard vinaigrette hit with heat. Its appearance here reflects how a household handled the tail end of a boiled or baked ham: the cold cuts were revived in a hot pan, dressed to cut the fat and salt, and sent to the table for luncheon or a late supper.