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Ham: An Obsession with the Hindquarter
Veteran food writer Irene Sax tells us about a new cookbook and shares healthy and delicious recipes, including one that's been lightened up with tips from the book's author. This month's book is Ham: An Obsession with the Hindquarter, by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough.
America is in love with pork. You can’t open a menu or a food magazine without seeing pork chops or pork belly, and bacon has become such an obsession that it shows up in ice cream, muffins and pecan pralines. Now Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, writers of the Everyday Gourmet column for WeightWatchers.com, have written a book called Ham: An Obsession with the Hindquarter (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2010), about pork’s more refined sister.
The word “ham,” they point out, is the proper name for the hindquarters of a pig, leading to the seemingly contradictory term “fresh ham.” But when we say ham, we usually mean the many varieties of cured pork.
If it’s dry-cured, it can be prosciutto, jamón Serrano, Austrian speck or Southern country ham, all products with long histories and the complex flavor profiles that come from careful aging. If it’s wet-cured and (sometimes) smoked, it becomes the sweet pink slices of deli ham that we layer on sandwiches and mince into ham salads. If your ham repertoire has been limited to sandwiches and the familiar pineapple-studded Easter roast, Weinstein and Scarbrough can show you that all kinds of ham can be used in creative ways. They give us shirred eggs in prosciutto cups, mussels with ham and chickpeas, an elegant jambon persille and simply grilled ham steaks and Spanish-style frittatas.
Is it healthful? Depending on the cut, pork and ham are similar in POINTS® values. And while ham is a little higher than the very leanest cuts of pork, it’s close in POINTS values to most roasts and chops.
And it’s so versatile, the start of countless dishes from smoky black bean soup simmered with a ham bone to chilled honeydew soup topped with frizzled ham. Weinstein is the cook of the team, responsible for creating the easy-to-follow recipes and adding the tips on ingredients and techniques. Scarbrough is the writer, and he’s the one who will make you laugh out loud as you turn the pages, reading about how to pair wine with ham, why it’s better to send a ham rather than flowers to a funeral, why prosciutto is pink even though it has no added nitrates, and that it’s possible to make egg rolls without frying. (A hint: use phyllo dough.)
No-Apologies Frittata
What is prosciutto cotto? It’s cooked ham, a wet-cured ham that is then steamed, baked or braised until it is soft and mellow. In other words, it’s really good deli ham. Hate anchovies? We tried this recipe on someone who thought he did. And he loved it.
Iberian-Inspired Frittata
Serves 2–4, depending on what you serve on the side
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 medium shallot, minced
- 2 jarred anchovies, minced
- 1 medium garlic clove, minced
- 2 tsp minced fresh rosemary leaves
- 6 oz not-smoked, wet-cured ham, such as prosciutto cotto, diced
- 1/4 cup chopped skinned hazelnuts
- 6 large eggs, at room temperature and well beaten in a large bowl
Instructions
- Heat a 9-inch skillet, preferably nonstick, over medium heat. Swirl in the oil, then add the shallot, anchovies, garlic, and rosemary. Cook, stirring constantly, just until the bits of shallot start to soften but not to brown, less than 1 minute.
- Add the ham and hazelnuts. Cook for 1 minute.
- Pour the eggs in all around the skillet, not in a lump in the center — then gently swirl the skillet so that they evenly coat the bottom, distributing the various ingredients evenly throughout the eggs.
- Cover, reduce the heat to very low, and cook until the eggs have set and can be pulled back from the edge of the skillet with a heat-safe rubber spatula, about 14 minutes. Serve at once by loosening the frittata from the pan with the spatula, then sliding the frittata onto a serving platter before slicing it into piece-of-pie wedges.
Notes from Bruce and Mark
- We didn’t put the names of all the ingredients in the title because you might have run away. Anchovies? Hazelnuts? Ham? Listen, this thing makes a dynamic brunch.
Easily Improved Ham Salad
Clearly, you’ll use lowfat or even no-fat mayo and won’t miss the fat in this flavor bomb of ginger, curry and mango chutney. But if you’re going to make the salad in advance, you’ll probably want to add the cashews just before you serve it.
Curried Ham Salad
Makes 6 hearty servings, enough for 6 full sandwiches
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 lbs not-smoked, wet-cured ham, such as prosciutto cotto, diced
- 1 medium red bell pepper, cored, seeded and diced
- 3 celery stalks, minced
- 1 medium shallot, minced
- 1 cup unsalted, roasted cashews, chopped
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise (regular, lowfat, or fat-free)
- 3 Tbsp mango chutney
- 2 Tbsp lime juice
- 2 Tbsp minced peeled fresh ginger
- 2 tsp bottled curry powder
Instructions
- Mix everything in a large bowl, cover, and refrigerate for a couple of hours to blend the flavors. The ham salad can be stored, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.
Notes from Bruce and Mark
- The only trick here is good knifework: Everything should be diced into fairly small, uniform bits so that you get lots of flavors in each bite.
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