Yorkshire Potted Ham

Today’s recipe for Yorkshire Potted Ham is a classic leftovers recipe, using cooked ham or gammon.

A Quick and Easy No-Cook Recipe

Today’s recipe for Yorkshire Potted Ham is a classic leftovers recipe, using cooked ham or gammon. We love ham (and gammon) and I often boil or bake a large joint, and not just at Christmas. However, it really is the joint that just keeps on giving, and after days of sandwiches, soups and salads, it’s nice to enjoy it another way.

Plus, this recipe for Yorkshire Potted Ham preserves it for a few more days. You can vary the herbs and spices you use in this recipe, but this is how I remember my mum making it many years ago, although she wasn’t a fan of tarragon, which I’ve added to my recipe. Serve the potted ham on doorsteps of toasted bread or in crusty bread rolls. It’s also wonderful when served with crackers and savoury biscuits.

Memories…..

There are many recipes that have happy memories attached to them, and Yorkshire Potted Ham is one of them. I remember sitting in a cosy North Yorkshire cottage listening the the wind howling and buffeting around us. It was November and winter had arrived early. My dad knelt down to add more coal on the fire, the flames illuminated him in the gathering darkness. There was a smell of pine resin and apple wood, as he added more small logs and kindling.

My mum was busying herself in the kitchen, preparing a light tea for us all. We’d been out that day to Whitby, where fish and chips were enjoyed whilst sitting on a bench overlooking the angry, grey North Sea. She had boiled a small ham hock a few days earlier, as dad and I love boiled ham in all guises, and she had made some potted ham for our tea with the leftovers. She served the delicate pink shreds of ham flecked with butter and garden herbs spread onto thick slices of toast, as we sat by the fire.

The fire flickered and cast shadows onto the walls, the wind still howled and there was a contented silence. Everything felt safe, and I felt cherished, something that I’ve not really felt since they both passed away two and four years ago. Bereavement takes many forms and although I feel closer to both of them in the kitchen, as they were both great cooks, their presence is still missed so much, that sometimes my heart feels as if it is breaking again.

But, this is not to be sad post, or a sad recipe, this homely recipe for Yorkshire Potted Ham is a happy one. As it is redolent of that moment in time five years ago, like a captured snapshot. It reminds me that I was loved, and that thrift is in my genes. Just as much as my inherited artistic creativity from mum and my love of words from dad, it’s a continuity of much-loved recipes and happy memories.

The thriftiness of this recipe is the genius behind it, it’s basically a recipe for leftovers. It’s a way of preserving something for enjoyment for a few more days….eking it out, as my mum would have said. And as I have mentioned before, a boiled (or baked) ham (or gammon) is the joint that just keeps on giving. I know this from personal experience as the once pride of the dinner table is met with groans of “not more ham” a few days down the line!

Potted Ham is part of that rather lovely genre of potted food that we Brits love so much. I am an avid fan of all things potted, from potted cheese, to potted beef and potted shrimps. There’s something very comforting about a pot of meat, cheese or fish that is luxuriating in butter with subtle spices and herbs. And, it is just crying out for a large doorstep of bread, toasted of course, so the butter can bathe the hot toast with the captive meat (or cheese, shrimps, kippers etc).

Yorkshire Food & Cuisine

Before I share my family recipe for Yorkshire Potted Ham below, I’d like to share some Yorkshire recipes, and recipes using what I consider to be Yorkshire food and ingredients. The list below is by no means definitive, but it will hopefully give you a “flavour” of what we do so well in God’s own country!

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Step-by-Step Method:

• Melt the butter over a low heat for 5 minutes, then allow it to settle before skimming off the foam on top of the melted butter.

• Chop the ham or gammon into small pieces, and pull it with 2 forks. (Sometimes the ham or gammon is easily shredded without the need to pull it) You want small pieces or shreds of ham.

• Mix the chopped herbs into the shredded ham and then add the mace and white pepper. Mix well.

• Carefully pour in the clarified butter, leaving the milky residue at the bottom of the pan. (You can do this before adding the butter to the ham, by decanting it into a jug)
• Mix everything together thoroughly and pack the mixture into ramekins or potted meat jars.

• Chill the potted ham for a couple of hours before serving.

• Serve with toast and baby gherkins (Cornichons)

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Yorkshire Potted Ham Recipe