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Vegetable Hash
Hash may be made with one or many vegetables and with or without the addition of meat and fish. Potato is the most useful vegetable for hash, because it combines well with meat or other vegetables. The vegetables must be chopped fine, well seasoned with salt and pepper, and parsley, onion, chives or green pepper if desired, and moistened with stock, milk or water, using a quarter of a cup to a pint of hash. Melt a half tablespoon of butter or savory drippings in a pan; put in the hash, spreading it evenly and dropping small pieces of butter or drippings over the top. Cover the pan; let the hash cook over a moderate fire for half an hour; fold over like an omelet and serve. If properly cooked there will be a rich brown crust formed on the outside of the hash.
A method rather than a fixed recipe, written for the cook who has cooked vegetables left from yesterday. The proportions are the only firm thing in it, and they are worth respecting.
- The hinge: leave it aloneThe crust is the whole point, and it forms only if the hash sits undisturbed over steady heat for the full half hour. Resist stirring or turning it; stirring gives you a pan of mash.
- "Moderate fire"On a modern burner this is medium-low. High heat scorches the bottom well before the interior heats through, and the covered pan means you cannot see the damage until you fold it.
- The liquid ratioA quarter cup of stock, milk or water to a pint of chopped vegetables, and no more. Wet hash steams instead of browning. If the vegetables are already moist, err under.
- Vegetables should be cooked firstThe recipe appears to assume vegetables left from a previous meal. Raw potato and carrot will not soften in half an hour under a lid with a quarter cup of liquid.
- Savory drippingsRendered fat saved from bacon, roast beef or poultry. Bacon fat is the easiest modern equivalent; butter alone browns faster and can burn at this length of cooking.
- PanA heavy skillet, ideally cast iron, roughly 8 to 10 inches for a pint of hash. Thin pans give hot spots and a patchy crust.
- Chopped, not diced"Chopped fine" here means fine enough that the mixture coheres and can be folded. Neat cubes stay separate and the omelet fold falls apart.
- YieldA pint of hash serves two as a main course with an egg on top, or three or four alongside something else.
Hash takes its name from the French hacher, to chop, and for most of its history it has been less a dish than a system for using what was left: the cold potato, the end of the roast, the boiled cabbage nobody finished. The instruction to fold the hash like an omelet marks it as a step above scraps: it borrows the presentation of a proper made dish, and the browned crust, formed slowly under a lid, is what distinguishes a cook from someone merely reheating. Meat is offered here as optional.