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Vegetable Hachis
Fry in butter till they are of a pale brown some onions cut into slices, and add any kind of vegetables previously boiled. Chop them up, and stew all together. Stir well over a slow fire, and when about half done add some sliced chillies and tomatoes. If the pan be dry, put in a little gravy. Some sorrel or a glassful of vinegar may be added. Time to stew, half an hour.
A frugal Anglo-Indian style hash for cooked leftover vegetables, written in the loose style of the period: no quantities, no yield, and a good deal left to judgement. The technique is sound and the proportions are yours to set.
- The hinge: chop, then stewEverything must be cut small and roughly uniform so it stews into a soft, cohesive mass rather than a pan of separate lumps. The vegetables are already cooked, so the half hour is about melding flavour, not tenderising.
- Quantities to work fromFor four people, allow about 2 lb of cooked vegetables, two medium onions, 2 oz butter, two tomatoes and one or two chillies. It scales freely.
- "A glassful of vinegar"The original does not say what size of glass. If a wineglassful is meant, that is conventionally reckoned about 2 fl oz (a quarter cup); a tumbler would be far more. Either way it is a great deal of acid for a dish this size; start with a tablespoon and taste, or use the sorrel instead.
- Slow fireLow heat, barely a tremble at the edges. Once the tomatoes go in there is enough moisture to prevent sticking, but stir every few minutes as the mixture thickens.
- GravyMeat stock or pan gravy would often have been to hand in a kitchen of this kind. Vegetable or chicken stock does the same job; add it two or three tablespoons at a time only when the pan actually catches.
- ChilliesThe original does not say whether fresh or dried are meant; it asks for them sliced. A fresh red chilli, deseeded, will be milder and sweeter than a dried pod used seeds and all, so adjust to taste.
- What vegetables suitPotato, carrot, turnip, cabbage, peas, beans and root vegetables all hold up. Skip anything watery such as cucumber or marrow, which will collapse into liquid.
- SeasoningThe original mentions none. Salt and pepper are wanted, and the dish improves markedly with a final salting after the acid has gone in.
Hachis is simply the French for a hash, from hacher, to chop, and it entered English cookery books as a respectable name for made-over food. The point here is not a fixed dish but a method: any cooked vegetables, a browned onion base, an acid finish. Sorrel, offered here as an alternative to vinegar, was a common garden green in the period and was valued precisely for its sharp oxalic tang before lemons became cheap and year-round.