Cookaholics Bulletin Board

HI,

Recently, I have been on three separate searches for old recipes. I have found some solutions that are worth remembering.

I had lost two wonderful articles from Bon Appetit between 1980 and 1985. (A stock recipe that used 10 pounds of veal knuckles to make a quart of stock and a group of excellent German recipes including weisswurst) The Bon Appetit archives don't help. Local libraries are the answer and the trick is to find one with hard copy and convenient stacks. I found everything in a University Library in Bloomington, IL and the Evanston, IL Public Library.

Julia Child's savory roasted ham recipe from Parade Magazine from 1980 to 1986 was a comparable problem. The answer was the Abe Lincoln Library and their fiche collection. These included every page of every day's local newspaper including the inserts, comics and Parade Magazine. I was clever enough to assume that the recipe would have appeared just ahead of Easter. Bingo for 1982.

The hardest part is trying to figure out the Library's old fashioned copying machine.

Now shall I serve her very simple ham or go with my tradition of spit roasting baby duckies, baby lambies, baby chickies and baby bunnies? Or, we could have that weisswurst and rosti with brown veal stock reduction.

Tim

I wanna see that ham recipe.

Laurie

If you're not sure which issue a recipe was in you can often find out by check The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. It's sorted by date and alphabetically and it's very easy to use. Just ask the librarian!
And when in doubt see if you can browse the hard copies. If there's a cooking school in your area asking those librarians can be even more helpful.

Laurie,

If you are tired of brown sugar, maple syrup, pineapple, peach juice and other sweet, fruity ham recipes, this is the answer to your prayers. You can easily update the ingredients to suit todays taste, but the technique is lasting.

From Parade Magazine 3/3/82

This recipe is for a fully cooked ham, not spiral cut. The secret to excellent ham is to find a small producer's naturally smoked, bone-in ham that is not spiral cut. Illinois has a lot of hog farms and the best hams come from H&B Ham Company in Brighton, IL, Population 2,370.

Timing: Cook @ 325 degrees to an internal temperature of 140 degrees. (The times have wide variances)

Whole Ham: 15 - 18 minutes per pound
Half Ham: 18 - 25 minutes per pound

Prep: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees with the rack in the lower third.

Unwrap, remove strings and scrub under running water.
Place on a rack in a covered roaster.
Strew with 1 cup each of carrots, onions, celery - yes cut up.
Add:
1 tsp. whole peppercorns,
1 tsp. allspice berries or whole cloves,
2 tsp. sage or thyme,
3 bay leaves
Pour in 1 bottle of dry white wine or 3/4 cup dry vermouth
Add chicken broth to a depth of 1" in the pan.

Bring to a simmer on the stove. Cover and place in oven. Reduce temp to 325. Baste occasionally. (This seems silly to me.)

Dressing the cooked ham:

Remove the rind
Remove the fat leaving 1/4 inch.
Trim dark, dry and ragged pieces.
Dig out the hip or aitch bone to make carving easier.

Crumbing the Ham: Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

Press white bread crumbs onto the ham.
Baste with a sprinkling of ham fat or butter.
Brown in that pre-heated oven.

Sauce of Gravy:

Strain and degrease juices.
Taste for salt level.
If too salty, dilute with strong chicken stock.

Sauce options:

Serve juices as is.
Reduce them with cream or creme fraiche.
Thicken with arrowroot.
Add dried fruit plumped in wine or whatever.
Whisk in dijon/wine slurry for flavor.

Carve with a ham slicing knife: You want thin slices with bread crumbs along the edge.

Place ham with the shack up.
Make long thin slices from the tip of the shank toward the bottom.
Rotate the ham after each slice before making another slice.

Julia calls this her easy recipe. It's been about 15 years since I cooked the recipe and it is wonderful.

Tim

Thanks Tim, that sounds great. I love the bread crumb idea. I have been fortunate enough to have maybe 3 hams from local farmer friends given to me. There is no comparison they were the absolute best.

I have a girlfiend that lives in Lincoln Ill and Farmland Ham's pigs, are raised on her farm. They lease them the barn and some land. She and her husband have over 2000 acres where they live and grow corn for a living. Some of you were lucky enough to meet my friend in Chicago. Their operation is amazing to me. The amount of machinery and size of the storage building etc., is fanominal.

Laurie