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Ham Sandwich
Ham grated or pounded to a paste, then mixed with a paste made of the yolks of hard boiled eggs mashed, a little cream and a little butter, then seasoned with salt and pepper and little mustard, makes a delicious ham sandwich spread on thin bread and butter cut in thin slices.
A potted-ham spread of the kind that turned up at teas and picnics before commercial sandwich pastes were on every shelf. The original gives no quantities, so treat the proportions below as a starting point and adjust by taste.
- Working proportionsAbout 8 oz cooked ham, the yolks of 3 hard-boiled eggs, 1 tablespoon softened butter and 1 to 2 tablespoons cream give a spreadable paste. Mustard, salt and pepper go in at the end, after you taste; ham is already salty, and some cured hams are saltier than others.
- Grating or poundingA food processor does in twenty seconds what a mortar did in ten minutes, but pulse rather than run it, or the ham turns to slurry. Stop while there is still a little texture.
- Which hamA cooked, mildly cured ham off the bone works best. Cold roast ham, ham hock meat or the end of a boiling joint all suit this better than wet-cured deli slices, which are too watery to pound into a paste.
- Egg yolks onlyThe recipe calls for yolks alone, and the practical reason is plain enough: whites stay rubbery and will not mash smooth. Save them for a salad rather than adding them here.
- The mustard"A little mustard" may mean dry mustard powder, which needs a few minutes wet to lose its raw edge; prepared Dijon or English mustard also works. Start with half a teaspoon.
- Bread and butterThe butter on the bread is not optional decoration -- it seals the crumb so the moist paste does not soak through. Cut thin, trim the crusts if serving at table, and press lightly before slicing into fingers or triangles.
- Yield and keepingThis quantity fills roughly 10 to 12 small sandwiches. Because it contains cooked egg yolk and cream, keep it refrigerated and use within two days; do not leave filled sandwiches out on a warm afternoon.
Meat pastes like this belong to the long tradition of potting -- pounding cooked meat with fat so it would keep a few days under a seal of butter -- adapted here into a soft, spoonable sandwich filling. Afternoon tea, card parties and railway journeys created demand for something dainty that could be made ahead, and hand-pounded ham was an obvious use for the trimmings of a boiled or baked joint. The hard-boiled yolk-and-cream binder is characteristic of the era's cookery, which reached for egg yolk and butter where a later cook would reach for mayonnaise.