Vintage Kitchen: White Trash Cooking Ham-Lima Salad |

STEPHANIE BURT (this article was first published January 2013)

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Photo by Leslie McKellar

I gave myself a ham “assignment” this week. New Year’s Ham (served with black-eyed peas and collards) was amazing, but it was time to mix it up a bit. A woman cannot live by ham sandwiches alone, no matter how good they are. And there was still so much ham left.

Enter the ham salad. It’s a variation on the sandwich, yes, but it can be more of a “down-home” appetizer spread, served with crackers. Bringing ham to a girls’ night? Overkill. But bringing ham salad works.

White Trash Cooking is a cookbook that knows its way around a sandwich spread and white bread, so I knew I’d find what I was looking for. And I did – a surprisingly fresh-tasting variation on ham salad that will have you pulling out the Saltines or Triscuits. No water crackers for this one …

Photo by Leslie McKellar

Ham-Lima Salad (from White Trash Cooking, Ernest Matthew Mickler, Ten Speed Press, 1986.)

Chop your four hard-boiled eggs. Cut two cups of ham into ½-inch cubes. Add two cups of drained, cooked green lima beans, one cup of chopped celery, 1 tablespoon finely chopped onion, ½ cup Blue Plate mayonnaise, ½ teaspoon curry powder, salt and pepper. Mix, taste for salt, chill and hour or more to blend flavors. Then help your plate!

Ham-Lima Salad, Vintage Kitchen Translation

3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped (3 is what I had in the fridge, and I didn’t miss the fourth)
2 c. chopped ham (processed in food processor for a finer texture)
2 c. cooked and drained lima beans
1 c. chopped celery
½ tbsp. onion powder (wanted onion flavor with less of a raw onion bite)
½ c. Duke’s Mayo (I do not deviate)
½ tsp. curry powder

Mix all together and chill for an hour. Serve with crackers.