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Beet Hash
7 medium-sized beets 5 medium-sized potatoes 1 tablespoon cream 1 tablespoon butter Cook beets and potatoes separately. Chop them together in chopping bowl till very fine. Season well with salt and pepper. Moisten with the cream. Put the butter in frying pan, add the hash and brown well.
A plain root-vegetable hash that lives or dies on how dry the vegetables are when they hit the pan. Everything else is seasoning.
- Cook them dryBoil or steam the beets whole and unpeeled, and the potatoes whole in their skins, then peel while warm. Waterlogged vegetables will steam rather than brown, and a tablespoon of cream is not enough to loosen a mush.
- Potato choiceUse a starchy or all-purpose potato, not a waxy one, so the hash binds when pressed into the pan. Beets are about 45-60 minutes boiled whole; potatoes 20-30, so start the beets first.
- Chop, do not processThe chopping bowl gives irregular fine pieces with some texture. A food processor turns cooked beet and potato into paste in a few seconds, which will never crust.
- Fat quantityOne tablespoon of butter for this quantity of cooked vegetables -- something on the order of three pounds -- is thin for a modern nonstick or steel skillet. Two to three tablespoons, or a mix of butter and a neutral oil, browns better; butter alone over the long browning time will darken.
- The browningSpread the hash, press it flat, and leave it undisturbed over medium heat for eight to ten minutes before turning in sections. Stirring early is the usual reason a hash comes out pink and soft rather than crusted.
- CreamA tablespoon of cream here is a moistener, not a sauce. The recipe just says "cream" and gives no grade; heavy, light or half-and-half will all serve, and the dish is fine without it if the vegetables are already moist.
- YieldThe quantity is generous: roughly four to six as a main course with an egg or bread, more as a side.
- SeasoningBeets need more salt than cooks expect, and a spoonful of vinegar or a squeeze of lemon at the end sharpens the sweetness considerably.
Red flannel hash, the New England dish of chopped beets and potatoes fried in fat, was long associated with using up the leftovers of a boiled dinner; the name is usually explained by the red colour the beets give the hash, though that explanation is traditional rather than documented. This version has neither corned beef nor onion.