Ham in Sweet Glaze

Source: Anonymous, 1920

History

Jamón en Dulce ("ham in sweet [glaze]") is documented as a home-cookery recipe in the anonymous Spanish compendium La Mejor Cocinera, Recetas de Cocina, published by Editorial Saturnino Calleja in Madrid in the early 1920s. The book's own text is our primary evidence for the dish. It gives the method almost exactly as our record renders it: a large piece of jamón is soaked a full day, skinned and de-fatted, pricked all over with a thick needle, then simmered two and a half to three hours in two parts white wine to one part water with aromatic herbs; it is dried, sprinkled with sherry and sugar, rounded and pressed in a mold wrapped in a cloth, and the next day dusted with sugar and glazed by toasting it with a hot iron paddle ("se espolvorea con azúcar y se tuesta con una pala candente"). The recipe is one of several ham preparations grouped together in the book. Beyond what the cookbook itself records, the sources I consulted do not document a specific origin, inventor, date, region, or social meaning for this particular dish. The dish belongs to a broader Spanish tradition of cooked, sweet-glazed ham (as opposed to dry-cured jamón), but the record I reviewed does not support any narrative tying this recipe to a class, an era's tastes, or a status role, and none is asserted here.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Soak a large piece of jamón in water for a full day. Remove the skin and fatty parts, then prick it thoroughly all over with a thick needle.
  2. Bring to a boil in a pot with two parts white wine and one part water, adding aromatic herbs. Simmer for two and a half to three hours.
  3. Remove the ham and dry it well. Sprinkle it with sherry and sugar, then shape it into a round form and place it in a suitable mold. Press it firmly in the mold, wrapped in cloth.
  4. The next day, remove it from the mold, dust it generously with sugar, and caramelize the surface using a hot spatula or iron.

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