Germans from Russia - Ham Crust

Germans from Russia - Ham Crust

From NDSU’s Germans From Russia Heritage Collection:

Ham Crust From Wilma Heckenlaible Spice, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania A long time ago, there was a question about a recipe for ham crust, a hard and chewy “flour-and-water" crust on a baked ham. I finally have found my mother's recipe, which is "for a large ham." 3 cups flour 1/3 cup oil 2/3 to 3/4 cup water 1 tsp. salt Mix ingredients together and roll with a rolling pin to a size that will wrap the ham. Bake as usual. The crust comes out hard, but the inner part of it is well flavored with the ham. Yummy! http://library.ndsu.edu/grhc/foods/recipe/hamcrust.html

For the Germans from Russia, this is a very, very old method of baking a ham, with roots going all the way back to Alsace.

I made this about a year-and-a-half-ago, intending it to be a full pictorial; unfortunately, life happened, and I got too busy with work and other matters, so it never got posted. I will post what I have, and re-visit the subject as I can. I think that I know where the photos are, and will post those as well, but they aren't wonderful, as I did a very plain, non-fancy job of wrapping the crust around the ham. I might have finally deleted the photos as well, intending to make a better presentation next time. I'll see what I can find out.

The ham was very, very good when cooked this way, and the crust was - in my opinion - a special treat, with its infusion of roasted ham flavor. Now that we're getting into the colder months of the year, this would be a great choice; as I look out the window now at the grey skies and rain-drenched ground, I wish that a similar ham would be cooking in my oven, right now.

Here are my notes:

9 February 15 I convinced Melissa to buy a ham with promises of delicious, crusted glory. I had all the stuff, took the introductory photos, started the dough for the crust. I used my "roasted' sunflower oil (very nice stuff!) - fell in love with the aroma it made with the dough.... At first, it seemed like I was making a good pastry crust, The water and oil gave the flour that dry/wet quality where you could bunch a handful up and it would clump fairly well, and I thought I was off to a great start. But, the dough turned out tough as nails - like old-style bubble gum that broke rather than stretched, and made your jaw hurt after chewing it even a few minutes. I kneaded, tried to roll, kneaded some more, added a few sprinkles of cold water, worked it in, kneaded, rolled, folded and so forth. It just got worse. After most of an hour of this, I looked at the clock, realised that the ham would ever be finished at a decent time - and I threw the aborted dough away, figuring that I could take the week and figure out what exactly what went wrong. We ended up making "Dorito Nachos" instead, which were good, as far as junk food goes - but not even close to the wonderful crusted ham I was expecting and wanting. Instinctively, I knew that the dough needed more water, and even when I started making it, I wondered about the amount of the water I was putting in - but I didn't want to go too far from what the recipe said, as I wasn't sure what exactly the pastry crust was supposed to be like when it was around a ham (the description says it should be hard); plus, every time I add water to a dough, I manage to add WAY too much and it gets all watery-pasty and never seems to "work" right anyway. So I only added a few sprinkles of water, probably amounting to a scant tablespoon. This was my second mistake. (here it comes....) My FIRST mistake was when I transcribed the recipe. The recipe says to use 2/3 cup of water, but for some reason, I only put 1/3 cup of water on my sheet. Even though I knew this seemed like it was not enough, I tried to make it work, and after messing with the dough so much, I was reluctant to add more water, even though I felt it needed more. Stupid me, I should have trusted my instincts and cross-checked - but I didn't. And the Dortio Nachos were my culinary Hail Marys..... :( Next week, however, it will get done right. My plan is to make the crust (correctly, this time!) and then begin it in the oven before I go pick up Melissa from work (probably 5 or 530 pm). This will put us home at about 7 pm, which should be just about right for a 6.5-pound butt-portion ham. I'll double check the weights and cooking times and adjust as necessary, but that's the over-all plan.

16 February 2016 The Crusted Ham came out tasting very good! I was extremely impressed with the concept and the result, but there was, as always, room for improvement. The dough for the crust went very well, I ended up adding about 3/4 cup of water rather than 2/3, but with some more careful kneading, this might not have been necessary. Suffice to say that the recipe for the crust is very close and the type of flour may or may not play a role in how much water is ultimately needed; a little adjusting might be necessary but this is to be expected. Sunflower oil was really good with it - I very much recommend the "roasted" sunflower oil, which would probably actually be very close to what was used, given the GfR association with sunflowers in Alsace, Ukraine and North Dakota. The only fly in the soup was that I probably should have cut a vent somewhere in the crust. I considered doing so when I got started, but chose not to, since nothing in the recipe said to do so. However, when the ham was done, The bottom of the crust (I had the crusted ham sitting on a low rack) was soggy and the juices had spilled out. There are a few factors here, though, which might have affected what happened. I used what I think is called a "city ham," which is definitely more moist than the country ham that a GfR hausfrau probably would have used. Also, The wire rack I set it on may have cut through the crust anyway - I noticed that in spite of the rack, the bottom of the crust was stuck to the bottom of the roasting pan. None of this took away from the excellent results. The ham was very tasty and moist - and the pieces of crust that I served as a sort of "bread" tasted very nice, with plenty of ham flavour. Next time, I might try these improvements: a) Cut a couple of vents in the crust to get rid of the excess moisture when cooking this type of ham. b) Forget the rack and either set the ham on a trivet or directly on the bottom of the roasting pan.

I shared these impressions with Brook, and his replies were very enlightening and helpful. I'll include them here:

Brook wrote: I suspect most of your problems with the ham stemmed from the ham itself. Keep in mind that city ham, in addition to being inherently more moist, gets pumped up with water and other liquids. Venting, alone, would not have solved the problem because it wasn’t steam causing it, but, rather, liquid being drawn out and settling to the bottom. Speaking of which, do you remember Roscoe Lee Brown’s great line about that, in The Cowboys? He’s describing how to make an apple pie, and finishes by saying, “Cut three slits in the crust; one for the steam and two because that’s the way your mama did it.” But I digress. Short of converting to a country ham, I don’t know if there’s actually a solution. Another thing to keep in mind when making GfR dishes: Most of these recipes are submitted by people who haven’t cooked them, and maybe don’t actually cook much at all. They were either written down by Grandma, or are remembrances of how Granny did it. One outcome: You must apply what you know about basic cookery. Granny would not have mentioned, in a written recipe, to put slits in a crust, because it was something she’d automatically do. And a second or third generation person might not even know she did that as a matter of course. Having said that, would you normally slit a dough-wrapped protein? I’ve only done that once, playing with a Beef Wellington, and it didn’t require slitting. It’s not like a pie, that generates a head of steam powerful enough to lift the crust off. This is a guess, on my part, not actual knowledge, because I don’t do a lot of baking. But my best estimate is that vents wouldn’t have mattered in this case. The fact that you really enjoyed it is, when all is said and done, what matters.

I would definitely agree!