Ham Loaf (A Western PA thing)
My Mom would make a Ham loaf with a very tasty sauce when I was a youngster.. So, the taste and smell brings up a lot of childhood memories..
Our local food store often would mix a batch and we would buy it as soon as we noticed that they had it, unfortunately, our local store has gone out of business and finding one that knows what to mix and how much is just not happening..
So, digging around on the Internet I found that typically it is a mix of Ham and Pork ground up together, about 1.5 lbs of ground Pork to 1 lb of ground ham is the base.
So, we bought a electric grinder, 1/2 of a ham (bone in ready to eat) and a pork butt and gave it a try..
The result was pretty good on our first attempt!
My Mom would buy 2.5 lbs of the base mix, then add 1/2 lb of ground burger, one egg, couple of handfuls of crushed crackers a few splashes of milk and a dash of pepper.
Mix and form into a loaf to fit in a deep glass baking dish. We also added a small amount of Paprika to our homemade mix since the store we used to buy from also had that in their mix.
Then she would make the sauce.
Sauce consists of 1 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 cup of vinegar (you can adjust this a bit, my DD LOVES a stronger vinegar flavor so she uses 3/4 cup of vinegar), 1/2 cup of water, 1 TBSP (Table spoon) of yellow mustard and a splash of Ketchup (to make it red according to my Moms notes). Stir with a whisk while heating the sauce (using a whisk helps to incorporate the Mustard and Ketchup into the sauce, can use a spoon but often will have little lumps of mustard if you do so). Cook the sauce for 5 minutes.
Pour a small amount of the sauce over the ham loaf (don't overfill, it WILL boil over if you do).
Place in oven set to 375 (we use 425 since our oven runs on the cold side) for 1.5 hrs..
You need to check on the loaf to make sure the bottom is not burning (the sauce tends to burn if not careful).
Bast the Ham loaf often while cooking..
Serve the ham loaf with a splash of extra sauce spooned on top..
:)
Our local food store often would mix a batch and we would buy it as soon as we noticed that they had it, unfortunately, our local store has gone out of business and finding one that knows what to mix and how much is just not happening..
So, digging around on the Internet I found that typically it is a mix of Ham and Pork ground up together, about 1.5 lbs of ground Pork to 1 lb of ground ham is the base.
So, we bought a electric grinder, 1/2 of a ham (bone in ready to eat) and a pork butt and gave it a try..
The result was pretty good on our first attempt!
My Mom would buy 2.5 lbs of the base mix, then add 1/2 lb of ground burger, one egg, couple of handfuls of crushed crackers a few splashes of milk and a dash of pepper.
Mix and form into a loaf to fit in a deep glass baking dish. We also added a small amount of Paprika to our homemade mix since the store we used to buy from also had that in their mix.
Then she would make the sauce.
Sauce consists of 1 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 cup of vinegar (you can adjust this a bit, my DD LOVES a stronger vinegar flavor so she uses 3/4 cup of vinegar), 1/2 cup of water, 1 TBSP (Table spoon) of yellow mustard and a splash of Ketchup (to make it red according to my Moms notes). Stir with a whisk while heating the sauce (using a whisk helps to incorporate the Mustard and Ketchup into the sauce, can use a spoon but often will have little lumps of mustard if you do so). Cook the sauce for 5 minutes.
Pour a small amount of the sauce over the ham loaf (don't overfill, it WILL boil over if you do).
Place in oven set to 375 (we use 425 since our oven runs on the cold side) for 1.5 hrs..
You need to check on the loaf to make sure the bottom is not burning (the sauce tends to burn if not careful).
Bast the Ham loaf often while cooking..
Serve the ham loaf with a splash of extra sauce spooned on top..
:)
