|
Newsletter for September and a half, 2006
volume 3 of the newsletter that just goes on and on and on ham hash, ham croquettes, split pea soup & carrots Okay, I left you hanging after tricking you into cooking that big ham dinner and never told you what to do with all those wonderful leftovers. The boiled ham dinner is wonderful, but one of the main reasons for cooking it is all the great things I get to eat for the next 2 or 3 days. The first leftover I eat is generally later the same night. I invariably make myself a great ham sandwich – not hard to do because if you slice this ham nice and thin it is almost impossible to make a bad sandwich. The ham has a strong enough flavor to stand up to even the darkest coarsest pumpernickel or rye bread yet is subtle enough to not overpower a delicate challah or herbed white bread. It can handle the strong cheeses like Canadian Cheddar, aged Gruyere, Provolone and even the bleus and roqueforts, but still go well with such mild cheeses as Brie, and cream Cheese. My favorite – if I have the bread at hand is probably a thin sliced ham and onion with Provolone on crusty French bread with a little mayo and some Italian salad dressing. Second is the standard ham and Swiss on rye – a problem in For breakfast the next day there’s ham and eggs that are way better than your local restaurant has or it’s hard to beat a slice of this ham on a toasted bagel with cream cheese. Dinner the second night at my house will probably be cold sliced ham with mustard, the left over potatoes sliced and fried with onions, the leftover cabbage heated in butter with a couple of dollops of farmer’s cheese (or since you don’t have any farmer’s cheese – a couple of tablespoons of large curd cottage cheese) with a mixed green salad. Sometimes I’ll opt for a cold, picnic style meal of ham, potato salad (made with the leftover potatoes), the leftover cucumber salad – I’ll add some sliced cheese and small dinner roles so folks can make their own mini sandwiches. Be sure to have mayo and mustard on the table. By the third day all the real good sliceable ham is gone so it’s time for me to make some of my mom’s “World’s Best Ham Hash” or maybe some old fashioned ham croquettes.
Mom’s “World’s Best Ham Hash” I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m a big fan of hash. If I’m in a new breakfast place and they have homemade hash on the menu – I’m on it! My place in Cabo might be the only restaurant in the whole country with homemade hash. Until the Mexican government made the importation of corned beef illegal, we had two kinds – roast beef and corned beef. Since I don’t feel like corning my own beef and the Mexicans don’t make it, we’re down to just the roast beef. Anyway, I’ve eaten hash all over the continent roast beef, corned beef, turkey chicken-even fish and crab and have never found anything as good as my mom’s. It’s really easy to make. You do it like this here: Parts list Ham……………………………pick out the little bits and un-sliceable lean sections of ham from the bone and chop them very, very fine – almost like ground meat Ham fat………………………..you want about one third to one half as much fat as ham. Use the soft white fat and chop it as fine or finer than you chopped the ham Potatoes………………………cooked, peeled potatoes. Also chopped very fine – as a matter of fact I often mash them coarsely with a fork Onion………………………….about a third as much onion as potato -chopped fine and cooked in butter until soft. Garlic………………………….just a chopped clove or two. I don’t go heavy on the garlic but you can if you want. Cook it with the onions. Parsley………………………..this is a very important part of the dish so be generous. I would guess at least a heaping tablespoon for each cup of hash fresh and chopped to a normal size. Don’t leave out the parsley Cooking it up
Mix the ham and the fat in a bowl until the fat is equally distributed – no big globs of fat. Toss in the chopped potatoes, the cooked onion and garlic and the parsley – mix it well. Heat a generous amount of butter in your favorite frying pan over medium heat (maybe just a tad of oil if you don’t like the butter browned). When it’s good and hot but not smoking add the hash. My frying pan of choice is a big, very old cast iron skillet which I think is still the best cooking utensil of all. Once you get the hash in the pan – for heaven’s sake leave it alone. If you start pestering it, it will stick. As a matter of fact things usually stick for one of two reasons – the pan and oil aren’t hot enough or you start moving stuff around too soon. Whatever you cook in a frying pan – be it fish, fowl, chops steaks, burgers, eggs or pancakes – let it cook at least along enough to develop the start of a crust. If your pan is sticking it is probably your fault. Anyway, I don’t even touch the hash until I can see it browning - almost starting to burn - around the edges. Then I turn it over and do the same on the other side. This recipe will work for just about any kind of hash. I have made hash with manta ray, leftover cooked fish and crab, beef, turkey and chicken and they’ve all been good. Since most of these don’t come with all that delicious pork fat I add some melted butter to the hash before I cook it. You can use this same recipe to make some yummy ham croquettes, a once popular dish that has all but vanished from the American kitchen. Spencer’s mom’s ham croquettes with Béchamel (white gravy or cream sauce) When you’ve got the hash in a bowl, all made up and ready to go add a raw egg and mix it up thoroughly (I’d guess one egg for each cup and a half of hash – too much egg won’t really hurt but to little and the croquettes will want to fall apart . with your hands form them into fat patties, then put them into a pile of bread crumbs to coat them completely. Then fry them in oil until golden and crispy. If you have a deep fryer at home you can deep fry them at about 350-375. I don’t have one so I just fry them in a generous amount of oil- in my trusty cast pan – then turn them and do the other side. basic cream sauce If you’re feeling pretentious you can call it ‘sauce Béchamel’, but the folks down home know it as white gravy. Couldn’t be any easier to make. Take a tablespoon of butter –put it in a pan and get it hot, add a tablespoon of flour and stir constantly for a couple of minutes, getting rid of all the lumps. This should be over low heat because you don’t want to burn or brown it but you do want to cook away any raw flour taste. Then add milk or half and half or cream – the bigger the percentage of cream the richer the sauce. If you really want to be a master chef with a world class béchamel use a fifty-fifty mix of cream and chicken stock. Simmer it until it thickens. Maybe a little salt and it’s done. You’ve just made a fancy French sauce. Want it even fancier? Toss in a squirt of Down to the real nitty-gritty. Okay I’ve cooked a great ham dinner. Eaten great leftovers for a couple days and now I have this big, ugly, fatty ham bone in my fridge. I suppose you have a recipe for that too? You bet! This is probably my favorite part. split pea soup Usually when I give you a recipe I check it in one of my books or on line to make sure I didn’t make some really stupid mistake. I checked this recipe on google and found 1,280,000 English pages of split pea soup recipes. I guess it’s popular. I was surprised to find that there are mentions of this soup in the writings of Aristophanes which means they’ve been making this great soup since at least 400 B.C. Nearly all the recipes I looked at called for a lot more work and a lot more ingredients than mine. However mine is real good, uncomplicated, and needs no processors, cream, boullion, shitake mushrooms, exotic herbs or imported mountain grown sun dried baby peas. So try it my way the first time - then if you want to fool around – go for it. parts list 1 ham bone………………….the meatier the better. Ham fat……………………….finely chopped - enough to render out enough grease to cook a chopped onion Split peas…………………….I usually get a one pound package One onion……………………chopped – I like to see pieces of onion in the soup so I chop it into relatively large pieces One Bay leaf………………… Some whole black pepper corns…I happen to like the pepper corns when they have been cooked long enough to not be crunchy. Many people do not. You can skip this and add table pepper or fresh ground pepper at the end. Carrots………………………..if you’ve been reading these stupid newsletters you probably know I don’t like carrots. Out of respect for my dear departed mom I always throw one finely chopped carrot into the soup. If you like carrots in your split pea soup feel free to use as much as you want. Sliced, chopped or even whole baby carrots – whatever. putting it together Put the chopped ham fat – at least a couple of tablespoons – in a big soup pot over low to medium heat. Cook, stirring once in a while until the fat has mostly melted into a liquid. Careful not to burn the fat, but you do want what hasn’t melted to be at least slightly brown. Add the chopped onions and garlic to the fat and cook until the onions are soft but not yet starting to brown. Add the big old ham bone – I know I’m gonna make soup so I always leave some meat on the bone when I make my hash – the pound of peas and how ever much water it says on the package of peas. I can never remember but I think it’s about six cups. If you want to be real uptown you could use chicken stock. I never have, but stock makes everything better. Regardless of what others may say you do not have to soak the peas for a couple of hours or over night. Right out of the package into the pot. If you want to pour the peas onto a plate or the counter and pick through them you might occasionally find a small rock or piece of dirt. So if you’ve got doubts - pick through the peas and maybe rinse them before you toss ‘em in the pot. Last thing in the pot is the bay leaf. Bring it to a boil then turn it down to the lowest possible simmer. The only way to screw this one up is by burning it. This is a very thick soup and will burn if the heat is even a little too high or if you forget to give it an occasional stir. It is going to slow simmer for at least an hour, probably an hour and a half – so drag your butt off the couch and give it a stir every once in a while. Dig the bone out and remove any ham left and put the ham back in the soup and give the bone to your dog. Since I like a thick peasant-ish soup it’s done. If you have more refined tastes and would like something more high brow you can puree the soup in a blender or a food mill or maybe you have one of those fancy submersible blenders on a stick like Emeril. If so take all the meat out and puree away - then toss the meat back in and serve. Some garlic bread or French rolls a green salad and you have a complete hearty dinner. My mom always served it with what she called ‘croootons’ they weren’t really croutons they were just well done buttered toast cut into little squares. I liked them so much I still serve them only I call them ‘mom’s Polish Croootons’ aah……………the lowly carrot I guess it’s time to make amends. I’ve been making carrot jokes and picking on this venerable veggie for many years. I have wondered for a long time just how hungry was the first guy to dig a carrot out of the dirt and pop it into his mouth. I’m guessin’ he was almost as hungry as the first guy to eat an artichoke. No more jokes – I have figured out how to make carrots delicious. I mean good enough to eat. Even a confirmed carrot hater like me thinks they’re yummy. I have even served these at my restaurant. Here’s how to make them: clean the carrots and if the root end is showing some green cut it off and toss it. Slice the carrots the way you want – in rounds or long ways or even cut them into psychedelic shapes for all I care. I use the whole baby carrots that come in packages already cleaned and ready to go. Plunk ‘em into a pan with about and inch of water and bring them to a boil. Don’t over cook them – no one likes mushy carrots. They are done when you can stick a fork in them with just a little resistance. Immediately pour off the hot water and run cold water over them until they and the pot is cool. Better yet – dump the hot water and pour the carrots into a bowl of ice water you have ready for just such an eventuality. The cold but perfectly cooked (al dente) carrots will keep in the ice water for a couple of hours and covered in the fridge for a couple of days. When you are just about ready to serve the dreaded carrots – melt some butter in a pan, enough to generously coat all the carrots you are about to toss in the pan. When the carrots are in the pan and you’ve stirred them around enough to get them all buttery – add a whole bunch of crushed whole dried tarragon and stir them around until they are hot all the way through (remember these carrots are already perfectly cooked (al dente) so we’re just heating them up) and serve. I’ve never made them with fresh tarragon because I’ve never seen fresh tarragon in These last to newsletters have got my mouth watering. I’m really jonesing for a big boiled ham dinner, but I am pretty sure no one in this whole country is going to cook one for me any time soon. I guess I’d better take charge myself. Excuse me while I make a phone call. ………………. Thank you. I just called my friend Celyne who has a bigger nicer kitchen than I do and made arrangements for her to invite ten or fifteen people over for an authentic southern style Boiled Ham Dinner. Hell, I might even go the whole Spencer
|