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Mixed Hash (Pt hashed turkey chicken) (II)
1 pt. hashed turkey, chicken or beef. 3 small potatoes. 1 tablespoon browned flour. 1/2 pt. stock. 1 tablespoon butter.
Heat butter, add flour and stock. When it starts to cook, add potatoes. Cook until potatoes are done. Put in chopped meat and serve on toast.
A leftovers dish built on a small brown sauce. The whole thing hangs on the browned flour, which is not the same as plain flour and behaves differently in the pan.
- Browned flourFlour toasted dry in a skillet or a low oven until it is the colour of a hazelnut shell. Toasting breaks down some of the starch, so it thickens noticeably less strongly than raw flour -- rule of thumb, about half -- and carries a faintly nutty, roasted flavour. Cookbooks of the period often recommend keeping a jar of it ready; if you have none, brown a few tablespoons over medium heat, stirring constantly, and let it cool before using.
- Pint and half-pintA pint of chopped meat is 2 cups, loosely packed. The half-pint of stock is 1 cup, which makes a fairly loose sauce once the potatoes give up their own moisture.
- The potatoesThe recipe never says to cut them, but three small raw potatoes will not cook through in a cup of stock unless they are diced small, around half an inch. Peel or not as you prefer.
- Order of operationsButter and flour first, then stock added gradually off the heat or it will lump. Since the flour is already browned, there is no need to cook out a raw taste; bring it to a simmer and go straight to the potatoes.
- Meat goes in lastThe turkey, chicken or beef is already cooked. It only needs to be heated through, two or three minutes. Longer and cooked poultry in particular turns stringy and dry.
- SeasoningNothing is specified, which assumes a well-seasoned stock. Taste before serving and add salt and pepper; a little of the roasting-pan gravy, if you have it, does more than either.
- YieldTwo to three servings over toast, more if you are stretching it with a vegetable alongside.
Mary A. Wilson wrote for the American household of the immediate post-war years, when the food-conservation habits of 1917 and 1918 had hardened into ordinary thrift, and much of her writing is concerned with what to do on the second and third day after a roast. Hash on toast belongs to that project: a pint of yesterday's bird, a cup of stock drawn from its carcass, and enough potato to make it feed the table again. Browned flour is an economy of the same kind, kept ready in quantity to give colour and body to gravies without the long cooking a fresh roux demands.