Directions for Cookery, in its Various BranchesLeslie, Eliza
General
Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches
Leslie, Eliza
Cooking, American
If you wish to serve up eggs with the ham, put some lard into a very
clean frying-pan, and make it boiling hot. Break the eggs separately
into a saucer, that in case a bad one should be among them it may not
mix with the rest. Slip each egg gently into the frying-pan. Do not
turn them while they are frying, but keep pouring some of the hot lard
over them with an iron spoon; this will do them sufficiently on the
upper side. They will be done enough in about three minutes; the white
must retain its transparency so that the yolk will be seen through it.
When done, take them up with a tin slice, drain off the lard, and if
any part of the white is discoloured or ragged, trim it off. Lay a
fried egg upon each slice of the broiled ham, and send them to table
hot.
This is a much nicer way than the common practice of frying the ham or
bacon with the eggs. Some persons broil or fry the ham without eggs,
and send it to table cut into little slips or mouthfuls.
To curl small pieces of ham for garnishing, slice as thin as possible
some that has been boiled or parboiled. The pieces should be about two
inches square. Roll it up round little wooden skewers, and put it into
a cheese toaster, or into a tin oven, and set it before the fire for
eight or ten minutes. When it is done, slip out the skewers.
TO BOIL A HAM.
Hams should always be soaked in water previous to boiling, to draw out
a portion of the salt, and to make them tender. They will soften more
easily if soaked in lukewarm water. If it is a new ham, and not very
salt or hard, you need not put it in water till the evening before you
intend to cook it. An older one will require twenty-four hours’
soaking; and one that is very old and hard should be kept in soak two
or three days, frequently changing the water, which must be soft. Soak
it in a tub, and keep it well covered. When you take it out of the
water to prepare it for boiling, scrape and trim it nicely, and pare
off all the bad looking parts.
Early in the morning put it into a large pot or kettle with plenty of
cold water. Place it over a slow fire that it may heat gradually; it
should not come to a boil in less than an hour and a half, or two
hours. When it boils, quicken the fire, and skim the pot carefully.
Then simmer it gently four or fire hours or more, according to its
size. A ham weighing fifteen pounds should simmer five hours after it
has come to a boil. Keep the pot well skimmed.
When it is done, take it up, carefully strip off the skin, and reserve
it to cover the ham when it is put away cold. Rub the ham all over with
some beaten egg, and strew on it fine bread-raspings shaken through the
lid of a dredging box. Then place it in an oven to brown and crisp, or
on a hot dish set over the pot before the fire. Cut some writing paper
into a handsome fringe, and twist it round the shank-bone before you
send the ham to table. Garnish the edge of the dish with little piles
or spots of rasped crust of bread.
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