Showing posts with label ham. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ham. Show all posts
Many years ago, when I was still a child, my mother came down with the stomach flu.
I could not have been any older than 6 or 7 years old, but it still is very clear in my mind and I know my age because of the house we were living in at the time.
It was left to my father to cook for us, my mother was that ill. The only thing he knew how to cook was fried eggs. And so . . . we had fried eggs for every meal that day. Sometime during the night afterwards . . . you guessed it . . . I got the stomach flu myself.
It was many, many years before I could ever face eating a fried egg again. In fact, it has only been in recent years.
One thing Easter always meant in our home was that there would be plenty of eggs to be eaten up.
Mom used to blow some of them out for scrambled eggs for those of us who couldn't abide fried eggs, and then the others would get fried eggs.
Always served with butter fried slabs of salty ham, leftover from the Easter dinner. It was always ham for Easter dinner, never anything else.
We would enjoy it cold and sliced along with mashed potatoes, salad and another vegetable. The star of Easter dinner was always the Lemon Meringue Pie we had for dessert.
The star of Easter Monday was always fried ham & eggs. I know in some families that for supper on Easter Day they would have egg eating contests, seeing how many eggs one person could consume.
That was never done in our house. We had one egg per person, two maximum. Mom was always very careful about the amount of food she let us eat.
One nice thick slice of ham/gammon. Fried in butter until golden brown on both sides.
The fatty edge getting all stick and sweet from the marmalade glaze. OH so good . . .
Sunny side up eggs are always a delight. It goes without saying that you will want to use the freshest eggs that you have, and they should always be started at room temperature.
If they are refrigerator cold, then just pop them into a bowl of warm water for fifteen minutes. That will soon bring them to room temp.
The only real decision you have to make when frying the eggs is to cook and serve them sunny side up, the whites softly set and the yolks beautifully runny, or to flip them over and serve them over easy . . . both with a golden brown lacy frill around the edges.
Look at that lovely glazed and golden slice of thick ham . . . perfect . . .
The yolk of the egg, perfectly runny and ready for dipping . . .
It doesn't get much better than this. You can use whatever fat you want to fry the egg in (I always fry my ham in butter), but I prefer a flavourless sunflower oil to fry my egg in.
It doesn't burn, so you can have it well heated when the egg lands in the pan, which gives you that lovely golden brown ruffle. Butter tends to burn.
Proper Fried Ham & Eggs
Yield: 1
You just repeat this process for as many servings as you wish. The end result is perfectly fried eggs accompanied with a thick slab of butter fried ham. Toast fingers for dipping into the runny yolks are a must!
Ingredients:
- 1 thick slice of roast ham/gammon
- 1 fresh egg, at room temperature (or two if you can handle that many)
- 1 small knob of butter
- 1 TBS of flavourless oil
To serve:
- Hot buttered toast, cut into fingers, crusts on or off as you please
Instructions:
How to cook Proper Fried Ham & Eggs
- You will need two skillets as the ham and the eggs will be cooked separately.
- Start the ham first. Melt the knob of butter in one skillet over medium heat. Once it begins to foam add the slice of ham. Cook on one side until golden brown, turn down the heat, then flip over and continue to cook on the other side.
- While the ham is browning on the second side, heat the oil in the other skillet. Crack the egg onto a saucer and slip into the hot oil. Cover with a lid and leave over low heat, at which time the edges of the egg will be ruffled and golden brown, the whites set and the yolk still runny. If the white is not set, recover and cook for a further 30 seconds.
- Slide onto a heated plate, season with some coarse black pepper and flakes of salt. Add the golden slice of ham and serve immediately with the buttered toast fingers for dipping into that golden yolk.
Today I expect I will be making a casserole of some sort with the leftover ham. What is your favourite thing to do with leftover ham? I really want to know!
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Chicken & Ham Pie. If you are like me you carry a whole arsenal of chicken and ham recipes. That is recipes engineered to use leftovers! This is a recipe I meant to share with you yesterday but with all of the upset of my husband's fall and everything, I never got around to it.
Normally I would make a better presentation of it as well, showing you what you can serve on the side, but again with the accident fall, that just didn't get done!
Nevermind, its the pie you are here to see. And this is one heck of a tasty pie!
Its a great example of making something delicious from what you have at hand to use!
I love the crust for this. It uses a fat combination of lard and butter, along with flour, baking powder, onion salt and milk.
Normally I would use all milk, but we are rationing to make our milk last longer and so I used half milk half water, and you know what? It was every bit as delicious as always.
It is a lovely tender and flaky crust, and the onion salt gives it a bit of a savoury flavour that works really well with the fillings.
It is the same crust that I use in my Hamburger & Chicken Pie (Don't knock it til you try it) and it is lovely, with a beautifully flaky texture.
I had leftover chicken from my roast chicken that we had the other day so I used some of that. I also had a package of deli ham slices in the refrigerator that needed using.
Chicken and ham are a very popular pie combination over here, so I thought why not! Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without!
It does use a tin of cream of chicken soup in the fillings also, but no worries if you don't have any.
Make a thick cream sauce, using 2 TBS flour, 2 TBS butter, 240ml/1cup of chicken broth and 240ml/1 cup of milk. It works just as well.
Melt the butter in a saucepan, whisk in the flour, cook for a few minutes, then whisk in the broth and milk. Cook, stirring constantly until it thickens and then cook for a few minutes longer. Taste and adjust the seasoning as desired. Let it cool completely before you use. You don't want to melt the fat in the pastry.
There are three layers of pastry in this. A bottom crust. A middle crust between the chicken and the ham fillings.
A top crust to tuck it all in nicely. Brush it with a bit of milk, if desired and bake.
That pastry is heavenly and the fillings are pretty tasty also. If you have any pastry trimmings, this is what my mom used to do with them.
She would roll them out, spread them with butter, fold in half and then cut into squares. We would enjoy them with soup. Oh so tasty instead of crackers and bread and no waste of anything.
Like I said, normally I would have shown you what to serve with this tasty pie. But today you will have to settle with my recommendations.
My husband likes mashed potatoes with his, with peas and gravy. (He is so British.) You could also have oven chips.
The Canadian in me prefers coleslaw or a salad with mine. Yesterday I had pickled beets, due to a lack of salad ingredients in the house.
Truth be told, this pie would be great even on it's own! Tina stopped by yesterday to pick up her CFM printouts on the BOM I had been doing for her and I gave her two slices to take home for her and Tony's supper.
She was most appreciative and we will have the rest for our dinner today! I don't think anyone will be complaining that it is leftovers!
Chicken & Ham Pie
Yield: 6
This is a simple recipe in which a little bit of meat goes a very long way. The pastry is heavenly and altogether this is quite, quite delicious.
Ingredients:
For the chicken filling:
- 250g cooked chicken, cut into small bits (2 cups)
- salt and black pepper to taste
- 1 tsp parsley flakes
- 1/2 (295g)tin of condensed cream of chicken soup (10 3/4 ounce tin)
For the ham filling:
- 250g sliced deli ham chopped (about 8 ounces)
- salt and black pepper to taste
- 1 tsp parsley flakes
- 1/2 (295g)tin of condensed cream of chicken soup (10 3/4 ounce tin)
For the pastry:
- 115g of lard (4 ounces)
- 115g butter (4 ounces)
- 420g plain flour (3 cups)
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp onion salt
- 160ml milk (2/3 cup) (I used half milk, half water)
Instructions:
How to cook Chicken & Ham Pie
- To make the ham filling, mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl. Set aside.
- To make the chicken filling, mix together all ingredients in a bowl. Set aside.
- To make the pastry, sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Stir in the onion salt. Drop in the fats and rub them in with your fingertips until your mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs with a few pea sized bits. Stir in the milk with a fork to form a soft dough. Divide into three bits, with one bit being larger than the other two. This will be the bit you use to line the bottom and sides of the baking dish.
- Preheat the oven to 190*C/375*F/ gas mark 5. Have ready a 7 by 11 inch rectangular pie baking dish.
- Roll out the largest bit of the pastry on a floured board, using a floured rolling pin, to a size large enough to lie the bottom and sides of the pie dish. It should only be about 1/4 inch thick. Line the dish with this. Spread the ham filling on the bottom of the pastry.
- Roll out another bit of pastry large enough to just cover the ham filling. It should also be 1/4 inch thick. Place on top of the meat. Spread the chicken filling over top.
- Roll out the remaining pastry large enough to cover the chicken filling with a bit of overhang to tuck in the sides. Place over the chicken filling and tuck in the edges all around. Crimp the edges. Brush with a bit of milk and slash to vet the top.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes until golden brown and bubbling. Serve hot and cut into squares. This is delicious!
Normally I would bake a few things sweet/wise for the weekend, but I am trying to make my flour last a bit longer until I know I can get more. I had to bake us a loaf of bread yesterday as well as we had run out. I hope you are all doing well! We can do this! I know we can! 👍👍👍
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
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Ham and Cheese Casserole. I am th Queen of leftovers. I hate waste and love to use everything up. I especially love leftover ham recipes which make great use of any ham you have in the house.
You don't always have to use leftover ham though, as you can also purchase a chunk of boiled ham at the shops which is great for things like this.
Today, however, I had some baked ham leftover from the holidays the other day and so I decided to make a delicious casserole with them.
We were all sandwiched out! Mom always made sweet and sour ham with her leftover ham, but we weren't feeling much like that either.
Plus I had some fresh noodles whose sell by date was looming. I hate waste and so decided to take advantage of both these things and make a tasty casserole.
It was pretty basic, and I did use a tin of cream of chicken soup. You could however make a basic cream sauce, flavouring it with a bit of chicken bouillon if you wanted to.
I am not a soup snob and I do use it from time to time, especially when I am wanting to make a quick and simple casserole.
I also had some cheese leftover from the holidays, Cheddar and red Leicester So I used up some of them as well.
They have very similar flavours so you could use all cheddar if you want to. Both are hard cheeses and the red Leicester has been coloured orange. Most of our Cheddars here will be found in their natural, white state.
Both cheeses are produced in a very similar manner, but red Leicester has a moister, crumblier texture and a somewhat milder flavour.
I added thawed frozen green beans for a bit more colour and some texture. Just cover them with boiling water, let them thaw and then drain well before using.
Mine were whole beans and so I used my kitchen scissors to cut them down into a more manageable size.
You could use any vegetable you wanted to use or even a combination of vegetables. Corn would be nice as would peas and carrots.
I topped the casserole with some cracker crumbs and a bit more cheese. I find casseroles are always nice when you have a bit of a crunchy topping to enjoy!
This was quick, easy and delicious. You could double the recipe if you had more ham you wanted to use up and freeze one casserole for a later time.
It is supposed to be 2 to 3 servings, but I'll be honest, for our appetites it is more like 4 servings.
It all depends on how big of an eater you are. We are small eaters.
A tossed salad would be very nice on the side. My pictures are not so great as we have had some very dark and gloomy days.
I like to use natural light for my photos if I can, so I apologise if they are a bit dark!
We enjoyed it simply with some buttered bread (for my husband) and pickled beets. I do so love pickled beets!
Yield: 3 - 4 (depending on appetites)
Ham & Cheese Casserole
A quick, easy and delicious way to use up leftover baked ham.
ingredients:
- 225g uncooked egg noodles (1/2 pound)
- 3/4 pound of cubed fully cooked ham
- 1 tin (295g) condensed cream of chicken soup (10 3/4 oz)
- 120ml milk (1/2 cup)
- 150g frozen cut green beans, thawed (1 cup)
- 125g grated strong cheddar cheese (1 cup)
- a handful of buttered cracker crumbs
- Seasoning to taste
instructions:
How to cook Ham & Cheese Casserole
- Cook and then drain the noodles really well. Mix them in a bowl with the ham, soup, milk and green beans. Season to taste with salt and black pepper, remembering that ham and cheese are both salty.
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter an 8 inch square casserole dish.
- Spread half of the ham mixture in the dish. Cover with half the cheese. Spoon on the remainder of the ham mixture. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese and cracker crumbs.
- Bake, uncovered, in the preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, until bubbling, heated through and the cheese has melted.
So that's all of the Christmas leftovers gone now. We still have Christmas Cake, but that is a good keeper and my husband will make short work of that over the next weeks. I also have some Christmas pudding, which he will also enjoy.
Those types of things never really go off. I am relieved that I never did more baking and that I kept things simple here over the holidays and didn't go overboard!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
Thanks for visiting! Do come again!
Follow my blog with Bloglovin
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