Creamed Chipped Ham & Collards

This just proves that flavor doesn't care where it comes from.

In anticipation of boiling some collards, I simmered smoked turkey necks for a long time in a pot of water, then added a ham bone that turned up in the process of catering a client's buffet.

This mongrel broth was not so much to look at. But I was certain it would lend some big flavor to our greens. Just before cooking the greens, however, I remembered a big hunk of leftover ham in the fridge. Now, there are a lot of things you can make with leftover ham. But if you haven't made creamed ham in a while, a vision of dinner begins to form.

Instead of pouring all that mongrel broth in the pot, I set aside two cups to make a sauce for my ham. I sauteed two shallots, cut into small dice, in 3 tablespoons butter. When the shallots were soft, I added 3 tablespoons flour and cooked that gently for just a few minutes. Then I poured in my 2 cups of broth and turned it into a sauce, adding some milk and finally a bit of half-and-half for richness. As you can see in the photo, you are looking for a gravy-like consistency. Add perhaps 1/3 cup crumbled cheddar cheese and stir until it has completely melted. Finally, add your ham, cut into dice, until it begins to look like creamed chipped ham and season it with salt, pepper and a bit of freshly ground nutmeg.

I also had some leftover riced sweet potatoes, so this was lunch: that velvety creamed chipped ham poured over sweet potatoes, with collards on the side. The sound you hear is my wife moaning over the creamed ham.

Call Me Hambone

Apparently I've gained a reputation as the soup guy in our family. As we were preparing to decamp from Easter dinner and as parting gifts were being distributed, brother-in-law Barry produced the bone from the buffet ham. With a certain glint in his eye, Barry looked in my direction. Would I consider accepting this prize?

Have I ever said no to a ham bone?

Normally the cured remains of the pork joint would sit a while in our refrigerator while I considered my options. But I had recently been digging through our pantry and discovered a huge bag of French lentils. It came tumbling out of a basket of spices I keep in there (one of my many failings is my lack of organiztion in the spice department--they've outgrown their shelf in the spice cabinet).

I decided to make this an all-lentil soup. To accompany the Puy lentils I opened a bag of Indian dal, or yellow lentils. I knew that if these particular legumes remained true to form, the yellow dal would dissolve into the soup and become background for the French lentils, which always seem to retain their shape and some texture no matter how long you cook them.

Into the pot went a large yellow onion, diced small, with about 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil and 1 teaspoon coarse salt. Next add three medium carrots, peeled and diced small. Cook the vegetables until the onions begin to soften, about 8 minutes. Nestle the ham bone down in the vegetables and add 1 cup each of the Puy and yellow lentils. (In fact, I did not measure, but I believe these are the correct quantities.) Toss in 3 or 4 sprigs fresh thyme and 2 bay leaves, then pour in enough water to cover the ham bone, about 8 cups.

Bring the pot to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 4 hours, or until the meat is falling off the ham bone. We ate a bowl for dinner last night and the soup was just thin enough to please my wife. She prefers her legume soups on the thin side, as opposed to library paste. You can jazz this soup up a bit, if you like, by garnishing it with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.

This soup also makes an excellent breakfast. But something happens to these sorts of soups when you leave them out overnight. They become thicker. Even after reheating, the soup had more of a stew-like consistency than the night before. I don't know if there is somehting about the starches in the legumes that thickens it in the night. But if it becomes too thick for your taste, just add a little water.

I know this soup will sound very familiar to some readers who may remember me making a pantry soup not long ago with lentils, split peas and a ham bone. To that I can only say that Gertrude Stein had it about right: things improve with repetition. Make this soup and I am betting you will feel as I do that it is far and away better than the one you made the last time.

Best Split-Pea Soup Ever

I recently wrote about a mongrel split-pea, lentil and ham soup. That was a great soup, thrown together with a variety of legumes in small quantities that were taking up space in our pantry.

Well, we recently put together a birthday party for our friend Desson and inherited the meaty bone from a honey-glazed, spiral-cut ham. I've been saving it for a split-pea soup. In honor of the occasion, I stopped at Whole Foods for some split peas from the bulk section.

Soups are great for cleaning out the crisper drawer. This one calls for one onion, diced small, and the one-and-one-half carrots I had in the fridge, peeled and diced small. I also had a medium-sized parsnip, so I peeled and diced that up as well. All those things were sauteed about eight minutes with 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil and a teaspoon of kosher salt at the bottom of my Le Creuset pot.

I then added the ham bone (you could make a vegetarian version omitting the ham bone and using vegetable stock), a bouquet garni--made with several sprigs thyme, two bay leaves and a half-dozen peppercorns wrapped in cheese cloth--one pound split peas, then the four cups turkey stock (the end, finally) I had left in the fridge and four cups of water, or until the liquid rose to about one inch below the top of the pot.

Bring this to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover and cook gently for several hours, or until the ham has fallen off the bone and the peas are completely disintegrated.

I've never had a better split-pea soup, neither too pasty nor too thin. Serve it hot with a wedge of your best iron-skillet corn bread. This is dinner for a cold, winter night when ice is hanging off the eaves and the wind is knocking on your window.

Split Pea-Lentil-Ham Soup with Sweet Potato

You are probably wondering how I arrived at a soup containing split peas, two different kids of lentils, ham and sweet potatoes.

I assure you, this did not involve a visit from the soup fairy.

I started with a meaty ham bone for which I had already envisioned a soupy destination. More precisely, split pea soup. This was a tradition in my family, making split pea soup from a ham bone. It usually came out very thick, or something like molten library paste. I like mine thinner, but with texture.

I was ready to make a run to the Whole Foods for split peas when I checked myself, thinking a quick peek in the pantry might save me a trip. Sure enough, in a big jar gathering dust on the top shelf, there was the remains of a bag of split peas. Not nearly enough to make a pot of soup, however. In the same container I found a handful of yellow Indian lentils. Again, an obvious insufficiency. There was also a small quantity of French Puy lentils, memory of some long-ago stew.

Neither of the three would suffice on its own. But with all three together, I had a soup and no need for a shopping trip. I also had part of a sweet potato, left over from making a rustic chicken stew (stay tuned). Voila, split pea-lentil-ham soup with sweet potato.


First, cut a medium yellow onion and three carrots (peeled) into small dice. Start these cooking in about 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil over moderately low heat. Stir in about 1 teaspoon coarse salt to draw out the liquid. Add two or three cloves garlic, thinly sliced.

Cook until the onions are soft, about 8 minutes, then add the ham bone plus 1/2 cup split peas, 1/2 cup yellow lentils and 1/2 cup French Puy lentils. Add 1 cup sweet potato cut into bite-size pieces. Pour seven cups water into the pot and add a few sprigs of thyme and a bay leaf tied into a bundle. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to the lowest setting, cover and cook very slowly for three or four hours.

As it cooks, the ham will eventually fall off the bone. The split peas and yellow lentils will completely disintegrate, leaving the French lentils very soft but still holding a bit of texture. At this point you can remove the pot from the heat and fish out the bones and any clumps of gristle, as well as the herb bundle, using a pair of tongs or slotted spoon. Season to taste with ground black pepper and salt.

Serve the soup hot, perhaps with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar or maple syrup. A crusty piece of bread will work nicely. This is a great soup for cleaning out the pantry. Don't be afraid to amend it to suit your particular cleaning needs.

New Year's Deviled Ham

I'm glad to be starting the new year with my new meat grinder. This was supposed to be an enamled cast-iron saute pan, but some of you may recall that when we went to the mall outside Annapolis to purchase the pan, the Le Creuset outlet was no longer there. We stumbled into a Pro Bass Shop and found an incredible array of meat grinders and sausage making tools. This became my mother-in-law's Christmas gift to me.

That's a roundabout intro to deviled ham, which enters the picture because of the many mini-sandwiches we made for a recent cocktail buffet. We had approximately one-third of a spiral-cut ham left over, plus all kinds of trimmings. It was time to do something with that ham before it spoiled. I planned to freeze most of it and turn the bone into a soup. What to do with the trimmings?

One of the preserving texts we keep on the kitchen counter suggested potted ham. A little more work than I cared for at the moment, stuffing the ham into jars, covering with clarified butter and all. But a close cousin--deviled ham--just might do the trick.

I confess, I am not all that familiar with deviled ham. I have memories of an exotic canned good wrapped in brown paper high on the grocery shelf, a sandwich spread that never found its way into our shopping cart. We were more of a tuna salad family. In fact, I had no idea what was in deviled ham until today. I did some snooping around my cookbook collection and the internet. Here's the recipe I made for myself, using a meat grinder instead of a food processor to do the blending:

2 cups roughly chopped processed ham

1 large shallot, peeled and roughly chopped

3 tablespoons Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

generous pinch red pepper flakes

small handful roughly chopped parsley leaves

1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives

Mix everything in a bowl, then run through a meat grinder (a food processor will also do, pulsing several times to the desired consistency). Taste and adjust seasonings as necessary.

I tried this on a cracker and it seemed a little dry but the flavor was just what I was looking for. Should I add some mayo? I wondered. Somehow mayonnaise seemed too predictable, too easy. I poured a small glass of Sauvignon blanc wine to wash down my deviled ham cracker and was immediately struck by how well the two went together. Dryness problem solved: I simply mixed about 1/4 cup of the wine into the deviled ham. Perfect.

Spread this on crackers, small biscuits, toast. It would also make a delicious sandwich with a very thin slice of sweet onion and a few leaves of watercress.

The Stuffed Ham that Wasn't

Today I would have been curing our ham for the Southern Maryland Stuffed Ham we had envisioned as the centerpiece of a family Easter buffet. Alas, the fresh ham that was promised at our local Whole Foods turned out to be a fairy tale, a chimera, the figment of a meat clerk's imagination.

I'll call him G.

My wife had a long conversation with G the day before yesterday. This after we decided that a stuffed ham--a delicacy of Southern Maryland, more specifically, of St. Mary's County--would be just the thing to serve the extended family Easter Sunday. A stuffed ham is unusual in that the ham itself is corned. You've probably had ham a dozen different ways and never seen a corned ham. Well, it is a bit of an oddity, cured like corned beef. You can buy corned hams at the local grocery in St. Mary's County, but that being almost two hour's drive from us here in the District of Columbia, we were going to corn our own. And that means first finding a fresh ham, a ham that has not been salted, injected, smoked, cooked or any of those other things. Just plain ham, the way it came off the pig.

Our cookbook collection is extensive. But nowhere do we own a discription of how to corn a ham. The idea is to soak the ham over a long period in a brine of salt, sugar, spices, water and a little sodium nitrate. We did some poking around on the internet and when we finally found what looked like a reliable recipe, we checked the calendar and realized we barely had the 12-15 days required to cure this ham. We needed a fresh ham fast, so we could make the brine and get the ham in the brine and find a container big enough to fit the whole thing...

That's when my wife called G, he being one of the clerks in the meat department at our local Whole Foods. Could G get us a fresh ham? Sure, no problem, G said. He'd place the order and we'd have our fresh ham the next day.

On that basis, we called The Sausage Maker (that's a company, not a person) in Buffalo, NY, the closest source we could find for sodium nitrate. Sodium nitrate is not essential to a corned ham, but it does help retain some of the pink color in the meat. We inquired if we could get overnight delivery of a $8.99 pound bag of The Sausage Maker's "Insta-Cure #2" (their monniker for the sodium nitrate). Glory, glory, the answer was Yes! And only $25 for the shipping.

Shortly after noon yesterday, a UPS man showed up at the front door with our bag of "Insta-Cure #2," now valued at $34. Suddenly the juices were flowing. I could see myself mixing the brine, the ham and all the spices going into the brine. So I made the call to Whole Foods to make sure our ham was ready for pickup. But this time on the other end of the line was confusion.

"What kind of ham did you say?" said the clerk who answered the phone. "Fresh ham," I replied. "My wife called yesterday. G said it would be in today." There was a pause. "Uh, can you hold for a minute?"

Well, one minute stretched into three minutes, then five. A second person picked up the phone. I explained again why I was calling. It was as if the conversation with G the day before had never happened. I was on hold again. Then the first clerk returned to the phone. I asked to speak with G, but--and isn't this always the case?--today just happened to be G's day off. Or he was working the night shift. Or something. So again I told the story of how my wife had talked to G, and G had told us the ham would be in today. Again I was put on hold while this other clerk went "in the back" to see if he could find a fresh ham listed on the day's deliveries.

When next I heard from the clerk, he said there was no record of any fresh ham being delivered. He would have to call "the warehouse" to see if there was any way we could get a fresh ham. Could he possibly call me back after he talked to "the warehouse?" I inquired.

Sure enough, a few minutes later the clerk called me at home to deliver the good news/bad news scenario. Yes, he said, they could get me a fresh ham. But not until Sunday, five days over the horizon and much too late to guarantee our ham would be properly cured.

I called our other favorite meat supplier on Capitol Hill. "We could have it for you Thursday," said the voice at Union Meats. Alas, still too late.

Of course, in the final analysis, it's all our fault. We should have been better prepared with a recipe, clearer on the long curing time involved. We should have marked our calendar. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, you're probably wondering what the "stuffed" part of this ham is. Well, that would be greens, such as kale, collards, spinach, and spices jammed into big slits in a 20-pound piece of boned ham. Then you wrap it in a pillowcase and boil for several hours (according to one recipe, at least).

And no, that is not me in the picture above, but rather a woman considered the culinary queen of St. Mary's County. Here she is, slicing stuffed ham.

Sadly, not our stuffed ham. Maybe next year.