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Corned-Beef Hash
2 cups chopped corned beef 2 cups cooked potatoes Salt and pepper 1/2 cup milk or water 2 tablespoons butter, or savory fat Mix beef and potatoes together lightly and season. Pour the milk into a frying-pan with half the fat and, when this is warm, turn in the hash, spreading it evenly and placing the rest of the fat, cut in pieces, on the top. Cover the pan and place it where the hash will cook slowly for half an hour. There should then be a rich, thick crust on the bottom. Do not stir the hash. Fold it as an omelet is folded and place it on a warm platter. This slow process of heating the hash gives it a flavor that can not be obtained by hurried cooking.
A slow-crust hash, closer to a French galette than to the stirred, scrappy kind. The whole method rests on leaving it alone.
- Do not stirThe crust forms only if the hash sits undisturbed for the full half hour. Any turning or scraping breaks up the browned layer and you end up with steamed beef and potato.
- Heat level"Where the hash will cook slowly" meant a cooler part of the range top. On a modern burner that is low heat, adjusted so you hear a faint sizzle rather than a crackle. Cast iron or heavy-bottomed steel holds the heat steadily enough.
- The milkThe liquid goes into the pan first, not into the meat mixture. It steams up through the hash, keeping the interior moist while the base browns, and much of it will have cooked away by the time the crust sets.
- PotatoesCooked, cooled potatoes chop cleanly; warm ones turn to paste. Boiled or baked russets left overnight are ideal, cut in rough half-inch dice rather than mashed.
- "Savory fat"Rendered beef drippings or bacon fat, saved from earlier cooking. Butter works and browns well, but a spoonful of beef fat gives the flavor the book is after.
- SaltCorned beef carries a great deal of salt already. Season the potatoes, taste, and go lightly.
- Folding outSlide a wide spatula fully under one half, fold, and tip onto the platter crust-side up. A 9- or 10-inch pan gives a fold that holds together.
- YieldFour cups of mixture serves three to four as a main dish, two if the hash is the whole meal.