Ham Salad

Ham Salad on thinly sliced crusty whole wheat bread

Back a couple of weeks ago when I had a refrigerator party, I used some of the ham steak to make ham salad. It's something I crave every now and then. A lot of time when I prepare this, I cube or shred the ham, but this time I decided to employ the food processor and make it more of a pate consistency. Texture is totally up to you, but for this round I wanted something that could easily spread on a cracker as an appetizer of snack as well as sit between a couple of slices of bread for a sandwich.

The ham steak I used, in spite of a good rinsing was pretty salty so I used a lot of savory spicy stuff to offset the salt. Ultimately I ended up with more of a deviled ham.

After cutting the ham into cubes, I pulsed it a few times and ultimately processed it until it was the consistency of a pate. I wanted something that could be spread on crackers as a canape for someone avoiding bread which could handle a chunkier consistency.

After adding a bit of minced sweet onion, to offset the saltiness, I started with a bit of Worcestershire sauce, some cider vinegar, horse radish and Dijon mustard. After some taste testing, I adjusted those ingredients and added some hot sauce. Although I spread it on a crusty whole wheat bread for the photos, I enjoyed it on wasabi flavored rice crackers.

THE RECIPE:

1-2 C chopped ham processed to your desired consistency in a food processor.

1 small sweet onion minced 1/4 to 1/2 C depending on your taste

2T Worcestershire sauce

2T horse radish

2T vinegar (white or cider)

1t garlic powder

sriracha or Tabasco to taste (I used about a teaspoon of sriracha)

Combine everything in a bowl and stir until completely blended and uniform in color and consistency.

Serve on bread, crackers or tortilla chips.

Another fun serving suggestion -- especially if you process to pate consistency is to take a wrap and spread a thin layer of the ham salad over the entire thing and then roll it into a log. For best results, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for a couple of hours and up to a couple of days. When ready to serve, with a serrated knife slice the 'log' into 1/2" sections and set them on their side to serve. They are pretty pinwheels -- especially if you use spinach or tomato wraps.

You can slice and serve right when you make the log, but I feel like giving it time to set up produces a nicer looking pinwheel