Ham

For this luxurious omelet, choose a good-quality lean ham, but avoid pepper ham or mapleglazed ham because you don’t want to distract from the flavor of the Gruyère, which has a wonderful taste and melts beautifully. If you don’t have Gruyère, you can use Emmenthal or Beaufort. This recipe doesn’t call for salt because both the ham and the Gruyère are naturally salty. Serve with Steamed Sesame Spinach (page 216).

Green lentils and bacon has long been a salad worth making. I will occasionally fold in some shards of crisp, olive-oil-drenched toasted ciabatta or lots of whole parsley leaves. A couple of years ago I started moving the whole thing up a notch by putting the lentils against a few pieces of exquisite Spanish ham and adding a certain smokiness with wide slivers of zucchini, their edges blackened from the grill. This has become a late-summer lunch I can’t get enough of.

A poaching broth for fish, a chicken, or a lumbering piece of ham is all the more interesting for the inclusion of a leek or two. They soften the stock, bringing the flavors of onion, carrot, and herbs together. The ham recipe here is my standard “food for a crowd.” Poached ham slices neatly, even when it falls off the knife in chunks, and can be kept waiting patiently in its own stock without coming to any harm. I often serve it with creamed spinach. I include it here partly to show ham’s affinity with parsnips and also because it’s a useful recipe and I wanted to get it in somewhere. This seemed as good a place as anywhere. I usually buy a ready-tied piece of boneless ham from the butcher for this. It needs no soaking, but will benefit from being brought to a boil in water, drained, and then rinsed before being cooked in the apple juice.

This is a lovely dish, old-fashioned and what I call “great-grandmotherly.” I sometimes find white sauces a bit heavy, so I have lightened this one by using half vegetable stock to milk. The sauce is worth seasoning generously, with salt, pepper, grainy mustard, bay leaves, and a (mild) grating of nutmeg. I leave the bay in even when the sauce is finished and poured over the onions. It adds much in the way of subtle flavor. Should you not fancy grilled ham, then I would still urge you to make the onions—they would be good even on their own, perhaps with a mound of buttery mashed potato or, better still, golden rutabaga with lots of butter and pepper.

The soup-stew, a bowl of spoon-tender meat, beans, and aromatics that partly collapse into the surrounding stock, is one of the suppers I hold dearest. More often taken as lunch, this is food that feeds the soul as much as the belly, enriching, calming, quietly energizing. This is the cooking on which to lavish the cheapest cuts going, the fatty, bony lumps that butchers sell at reduced prices: mostly cuts from the neck and lower legs. Ingredients whose sole purpose is to give body to the liquid in which they cook. A knuckle end of prosciutto would be a sound addition here, if your local deli will sell you one. Most will charge very little. Butchers are an excellent source of ham bones with much meat attached. Failing that, I use a lump of ham, complete with its thick layer of fat.

There is a Spanish stall at the market. Each Saturday in midsummer I wait patiently at the counter while the jamon is carved. I am unsure which is more beautiful: the long, elegant leg on its steel stand or the fluid, methodical way in which the carver slices the gossamer-thin morsels of meat from the bone. I never take much, its price is breathtaking, but once home I savor every mouthful, as much out of respect for my wallet as for the pig. If I find young fava beans, or the ones in the garden are ready to pick, I marry the two—a simple plate of densely flavored, fat-besplodged ham the color of dried blood and fresh, bright-green beans. There is usually soup on the table too, watercress or spinach or fresh pea, and some scraps of dry, mild-tasting Manchego.

In the summer, we’d sit on the porch shelling the black-eyed peas that Dede had picked that morning. The purple hulls dyed our fingers smoky violet. I’ve used frozen black-eyed peas to prepare this soup, but don’t use canned, as they are too soft. If using frozen peas, reduce the cooking time according to the package instructions or until the peas are tender. Note that the dried peas must soak overnight or have a quick soak. Don’t skip the essential step of simmering the ham hocks in the chicken stock. The flavor and aroma are what makes this soup extraordinary.

My grandfather used lots and lots of black pepper, especially to season Meme’s vegetable soup. It tasted wonderful, so it wasn’t like he was trying to hide the taste. He just loved pepper. We always had vegetable soup in the winter, using the vegetables we had canned or frozen that summer. This recipe easily doubles or triples. I like to make a large batch and enjoy it a few days in a row. You can prepare this with the traditional ham bone or opt for a vegetarian version. Serve with piping hot biscuits.

This famous New Orleans dish was originally served on Mondays, utilizing the ham bone left over from Sunday supper. Very low maintenance, it simmered on the stove all day while the women washed the family’s laundry and hung it out to dry. Although for the most part, Monday wash day is a thing of the past, red beans and rice is still often served as a lunch or dinner special at many New Orleans restaurants. Dishes of rice and beans are part of rustic country cooking in the Caribbean and all over the world. The inexpensive combination of rice and beans supplies essential amino acids not often found in plant proteins, and more readily found in expensive meat proteins. For the ham bone, traditional recipes now often substitute spicy boudin, smoked sausage, or Cajun andouille. Boudin is a spicy pork sausage with onion, rice, and herbs. Cajun andouille is a highly seasoned smoked sausage made from pork, whereas French andouille is made from the stomach and intestines. The andouille of Guémené, France, is crafted so that the intestines are placed inside one another, giving it the appearance of concentric circles before it is dried and smoked. This is potent stuff. I am always willing to try anything once, including chilled slices of smoked pig’s intestines. Let’s just put it this way, I’d rather have a heaping bowl of Mama’s Red Beans and Rice, and I’m not asking for seconds of French andouille any time soon.

I once demonstrated this recipe for a fundraiser in my hometown. When I started whisking milk into the grits, rather than stirring in water with a spoon, the influence of French culinary training became obvious. I can pretty much guarantee that Meme never whisked her grits. And years ago, grits were a food of the poor and milk was a luxury reserved for dishes deemed more important than grits. For my family and many Southerners, grits are prepared with water. But, for reasons French or otherwise, I like blending a bit of milk or heavy cream with the water to make them even creamier. Country ham, the South’s version of Spanish Serrano or Italian prosciutto, is brined, smoked, and aged, and can be very salty. In this recipe, it is not necessary to soak the ham to remove the salt; simply add less salt when cooking the mushrooms.

We moved from Georgia to Louisiana when I was a child and our family’s diet changed. Mama armed herself with spiral-bound copies of River Road Recipes (Junior League of Baton Rouge, 1959) and Talk about Good (Junior League of Lafayette, 1967) and started cooking. Soon, the cuisine of Louisiana—Mama’s Red Beans and Rice (page 160), Mama’s Shrimp Creole (page 131), and dishes similar to this jambalaya—quickly became as familiar and comfortable as Meme’s Old-fashioned Butter Beans (page 179) and her fried chicken (page 106). According to Louisiana Entertains (another regional cookbook), jambalaya is a descendent of paella, brought to New Orleans by the Spanish. The name derives from jamón, or ham, but colloquially, the term means “clean up the kitchen.” The dish is a delicious way to use leftovers so they don’t go to waste. I have seen both shrimp and chicken versions, but all jambalayas contain ham. Tasso, often referred to as Cajun ham, is smoked and very spicy with a peppery crust. This version uses boneless, skinless chicken breasts for a very simple and quick preparation. I also suggest using thighs, which are not as lean, but are less likely to dry out.

This dish is inspired by a traditional Roman dish made with veal and proscuitto. Translated literally from Italian, saltimbocca means “jump mouth” or “hop in the mouth,” perhaps implying that the dish is so good the flavors jump in your mouth. It’s best to pound your own chicken breasts, for this or any recipe that calls for cutlets, also known in French cooking as paillards. Chicken sold as cutlets in the grocery store aren’t actually pounded, but are horizontally sliced to resemble a cutlet. The meat contracts irregularly in the hot pan, making it tough. When pounding the chicken, I protect it with a heavy-duty freezer bag that I’ve cut apart into two thick sheets. I place the breast between the sheets and pound it with a flat meat pounder or the bottom of a heavy skillet. The idea is to create an evenly thin piece of meat, not to pound it into oblivion. This technique works equally well with turkey, pork, or veal. If necessary, you can substitute white wine or sherry for the Marsala or port. Whatever you do, cook only with what you would drink. Never, ever use anything labeled “cooking wine” or “cooking sherry,” which is full of salt and absolute garbage.

Mama and I now share the cooking at the holidays. I usually prepare the main courses, we share the side dishes, and she prepares the desserts. This ham is an Easter favorite. You may be surprised to see lavender listed as an ingredient in this herb crust. Although very commonly found in desserts, lavender—especially sweet English lavender—is an incredibly versatile herb for savory cooking. Be sure to use only pesticide-free, food-grade leaves and blossoms from an organic farmer’s market or online; lavender from florists, spas, or home décor shops are probably not appropriate to eat. The key to cooking with lavender is to start out with a small amount of flowers, and add more as you go. A little amount of the sweet, perfumed herb is wonderful, but adding too much lavender to your recipe is much like eating a bar of soap. A little goes a long way.

Meme made a paste of mustard, brown sugar, and sometimes Coca-Cola when she baked a ham. She baked it in a heatproof oven bag to avoid having a messy pan to scrub. Adding bourbon, which I use here, would have never crossed her mind. Only when she baked fruitcake was she anywhere near a bottle of bourbon. She and her neighbor, Cousin Eunice, would drive to the liquor store every November to acquire the spirits for the holiday baking—she would have never gone by herself.

An Italian frittata is an open-faced omelet similar to a Spanish tortilla. A French omelet is cooked very quickly over high heat, and additions like herbs, cheese, or vegetables are enclosed in the center of a two- or three-part fold. Frittatas and tortillas are cooked more slowly. The additional ingredients are whisked into the eggs and cooked at the same time. This delicious and easy dish makes a satisfying, simple supper with a side salad. Or take the Spanish approach, and cut the frittata into bite-size cubes and serve it skewered as a simple hors d’oeuvre. Ham and eggs are, of course, a marriage made in heaven. Used cured ham in this recipe, or if using country ham, halve the amount, so it will not be too salty.

Meme loved asparagus, which she called “asparagus salad,” although there wasn`t anything to preparing it other than opening the familiar shiny silver can. Even though I know the flavor of canned asparagus (really, there isn’t any) cannot compare to freshly cooked, I enjoy that taste memory. The ends of fresh asparagus can be tough and woody. I prefer to slice off the last inch or two of the stem instead of snapping it off where the spear breaks naturally. Not only is it more visually appealing when all the spears are exactly the same size, but they will also cook at the same rate. As these are best fried at the last minute, I suggest you serve them as a first course at a small dinner, not as an hors d’oeuvre at a large party.

Nothing can compare to a Virginia baked ham, but any good-quality ham used in this recipe will yield surprisingly delicious results. This is truly one of those foolproof throw-everything-in-the-cooker-and-walk-away kind of dishes. Mashed potatoes and green beans make a great accompaniment.

My mom thinks these might be more ’60s than ’80s, but they sound ’80s to me, so here they are. These open-faced grilled cheese sandwiches are easy to make and sure to get a comment or two from your friends.

This is another dish I swiped from the French. I was skeptical when I first saw it, but the combination of the cantaloupe, cucumber, tomato, and lime juice give it a fresh, clean flavor that is different from any salad I had ever tried before. Prosciutto is a delicious, thin, smoky Italian cured ham. If you can’t get it at your deli counter, get the smokiest ham they have and ask them to slice it as thin as possible.