Two Takes on Ham Salad
photography by Talitha Schroeder
If you don’t end up with extra Easter ham, maybe you aren’t buying enough to begin with. Because just like Thanksgiving turkey, the leftovers are the best part.
Holly Hill and Co. Executive Chef Tyler McNabb and staff writer Donna Hecker share two recipes for ham salad, one of which (surprisingly) doesn’t have to be made with ham. In case you under-purchased.
Chef Tyler’s Ham Salad
Executive Chef Tyler McNabb varies this ham salad, depending on whether he’s making it in the restaurant or at home. The restaurant version often contains country ham and cornichons; he’s more likely to have gherkins or bread and butter pickles at home.
Ingredients
1 lb. leftover [smoked] ham; can sub country ham if that’s what you’ve got
5-7 cornichons or gherkins
Half an onion
Handful of parsley
1 t hot sauce or to taste
1T apple cider vinegar
1 T Dijon mustard
¾ C Dukes Mayo * not sponsored by Dukes, just a fan
Directions
Rough chop everything then pulse together in a blender/food processor to form an even paste.
Transfer to a bowl and fold in the mayo.
Taste for seasoning. Chill in the fridge! Consistency is key: needs to be spreadable when chilled (too thick if it breaks a cracker, too thin if it runs.)
If using a honey ham, use a more sour pickle.
Wilkinson Street Ham Salad
from Barbara Hecker (Donna’s late mom)
1 lb. piece of all-beef bologna (or 2-3 cups of ham, either city or country ham)
2 hard-boiled eggs
4-6 sweet pickles [gherkins]
2-4 soda crackers
Cut ham or bologna in chunks and place in food processor and pulse for 2-3 seconds.
Add sweet pickles, soda crackers and eggs. (If you like, you can add a stalk of celery.)
Pulse again until mixture is finely chopped.
Remove to a bowl and mix in by hand, 2-3 tablespoons of mayonnaise, 1 tsp of mustard and (optional) 1 teaspoon horseradish
Mix well, if necessary you can add more mayo or a bit of pickle juice.
Taste and adjust accordingly.
* Mom would have used Hellman’s mayonnaise and French’s yellow mustard/you can get fancier if you want. And I don’t ever remember her adding the horseradish but I’m all for it.
Full disclosure – growing up, not once did I eat ham salad that actually contained ham. My mother was of the bologna school so that’s what she made it with. The name of the recipe refers to Wilkinson St., now Wilkinson Blvd., in Frankfort, Ky. which borders Blanton Acres, the neighborhood where I grew up. The recipe may have come from a collection put together by Mom’s neighborhood homemaker’s group.
Wilkinson Blvd. was named for General James Wilkinson (who helped to found Frankfort and would later be tried for treason) and our neighborhood was named for the Blanton family of Buffalo Trace bourbon fame. The Buffalo Trace distillery is across the street and Alice Blanton’s home was about one hundred yards from our front porch. She died in 2019 at the age of 101. Miss Blanton was the niece of Colonel A.B. Blanton, for whom Blanton’s Single Barrel bourbon is named.
Mom used to make this in an old Griswold clamp-on chopper, which I still have. Later in life, when she and her sister Mary Vogel had a little more disposable income, they liked to give one another nice kitchen wares, like a Cuisinart food processor.
— Donna
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