Hawaiian Ham Pie or I call it Aloha Ham Pie
Hello dears, if you have been following along for a while then by now you have noticed, I really love finding recipes those from the ’70s. Although, it is quite obvious that there are a few reasons some recipes from the ’60s and ’70s did not carry over into our everyday meal planning. However, there are some I have discovered that should be revived. While there are many people that have revived 40’s and 50’s styled homemade recipes, I really love finding those from the ’70s. My favorite thing is to find those small series of cookbooks from Better Homes and Gardens, or Betty Crocker that have themes. I have decided that after I complete the two Peg Bracken cookbooks that were her popular ones, I would like to work on some of the other cookbooks from that era. With that in mind, I had the perfect opportunity to try a recipe I found in an old copy of Better Homes and Gardens Casserole cookbook at a big family get-together a couple of weeks ago.
The story begins with the bi-annual family Thanksgiving in Northern Michigan and my husband was bringing his Deli-style Mac and Cheese as he usually does. I wanted to bring something a little different and unique to this shindig and finding this old book published in 1968 was a blessing and a perfect opportunity for me to try an experiment on my family.
Of course, I was rather worried as they really know how to make great food, but I was determined to make something unusual this year, but tasty. So it happened that my husband’s family were guinea pigs for this one, not just my kids. What’s the worst that can happen? It will be OK, I reminded myself, after all, it is Thanksgiving. It’s all about tradition! Maybe it’s time to start a new tradition of old-time dishes for these events.
The recipe I chose was a meat pie called “Hawaiian Ham Pie.” Now you are probably thinking to yourself “what in all get-out is a ham pie?” In fact, finding it on the Internet was not easy. Now yes I had the cookbook, but I didn’t know if you should serve this hot or cold, which was not listed in the book. We had an hour and a half drive north to make and we needed to time everything so we could warm the pies in time for lunch and I could find little to nothing closely resembling this type of dish.
So, now I will go into the recipe because I KNOW you are very curious at this point what this pie is all about. First, I will say this: be sure to serve it hot, not cold. That’s what we discovered. I also learned that it is important to make sure that there is enough room on the meat table for the meat pie if you bring it to a potluck, placing it with the pies can be confusing for some and shocking to others expecting something else like a dessert. A fact which my husband’s cousin found very amusing.
This works great for a make-ahead lunch, breakfast, dinner, take along to a potluck and, by the way, it was a hit! In fact, there was one family member that was excited to see the ham pie and he knew exactly what it was. He even went back for seconds! My kids loved it as well. And we all know that when the kids like something that is a feather in the cap, right?
It occurred to me that it was called Hawaiian Ham Pie because of the pineapples included in this recipe. Something about ham and pineapple suggests an immediate relation to the Island. And so, without any further talking and carrying on, here’s the recipe:
Hawaiian Ham Pie
6-8 servings (one pie) if you need more double, triple, quadruple the recipe but I recommend making each as a batch to ensure all the flavor is in each pie.
Ingredients
Pastry for 1 pie (not graham or cookie crust go with a frozen deep dish or make your own)
1 pound of ground cooked ham
⅓ cup of dried bread crumbs
1 beaten egg
½ cup milk
2 tablespoons sliced green onions
1 tablespoon prepared mustard (plain yellow is fine)
1 20 oz Can of crushed pineapple well drained
¼ cup brown sugar
Maraschino Cherries (Optional)
Directions:
To start with if you can not find ground ham, get 1 pound of ham and cook it if necessary, but make your life easy and get an already cooked ham. You’ll also need to dice it up if it isn’t diced to make it easier to grind in a food processor or blender on “grind” so that you can do smaller portions at a time. I used ham that was already diced up so grinding it was easier. Of course, if you can talk them into it, there is nothing wrong with letting others do some of this prep work too.
Dice the green onions
Beat the eggs with the milk
Combine together in a bowl, Ham, bread crumbs, eggs mixture, onions, mustard and ½ cup of pineapple NOT the whole can the rest we use later. Remember that the pineapple is to be drained well.
When everything is thoroughly combined spoon into prepared pie crust spreading it around evenly.
Preheat oven to 350F
In another bowl mix the brown sugar and remaining pineapple and then smooth over the top of the ham.
Bake for 45 minutes and about 5 minutes before finishing place a few cherries for garnish. If you are preparing this the night before a potluck place the cherries when reheating the pie.
Serve hot
There it is. One of my kids said if you like pineapple and ham on a pizza you’ll like this. Even if you don’t like those on a pizza, you might like this pie anyway.
Enjoy exploring recipes! And, as always, be Flamazing and Fabulous, my Flamboyant friends.
Stay Tuned for more experiments of recipes into our past when we ask ourselves “Who will become our heroine’s next guinea pigs? Will her friends remain loyal or will they run for the hills when she next says “I found this cute recipe…”
