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📍 Virginia

Country ham (Virginia cured ham)

· Breakfast

Salt-cured, smoked pork ham, pan-fried in golden slices and served with red-eye gravy.

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Country ham (Virginia cured ham): Salt-cured, smoked pork ham, pan-fried in golden slices and served with red-eye gravy.
Photo: John Goetzinger · CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikimedia CommonsPhoto resized, converted to WebP and cropped for display.
⏱ 15 min🍽 4 servings📊 Easy🏷 Commonly associated
Preparation
5 min
Cooking
10 min
Waiting and resting
0 min

History

Salt-curing ham is a colonial tradition of Virginia; the town of Smithfield gave it international fame with its aged ham. This country ham, very salty and intensely flavored, is eaten in thin slices, often with red-eye gravy made from the pan drippings and coffee, a staple of the rural Southern breakfast.

Ingredients

Adjust quantities

Only numeric quantities at the start of an ingredient are adjusted. Descriptive quantities, seasoning to taste and timings remain unchanged; check them when changing servings.

Preparation

  1. 1

    Heat the butter or fat in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. 2

    Brown the ham slices for a couple of minutes per side without drying them out; remove them.

  3. 3

    Pour the coffee into the hot skillet to deglaze and scrape up the golden drippings.

  4. 4

    Let it reduce for a minute to form the red-eye gravy.

  5. 5

    Serve the ham with the gravy on top and biscuits on the side.

Cooking tips

  • This recipe starts with cooked ham; if you buy uncooked cured ham, follow its cooking instructions before making the sauce.

References to consult

References provide information about the dish, its context or a technique. Quantities in this version may differ from those in the source.

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