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Tall Timber Baked Hash
Chop together 2 parts cold cooked potatoes with 1 part leftover meat. Add chopped onion to taste, plenty pepper, salt and a little butter, depending on amount of fat on meat. Put hash in iron pan or Dutch oven, douse with enough hot water to keep it simmering, bake a good hour in an oven, Dutch oven or with a second pan inverted over. The hash should be brown but not dried out.
A camp hash built for a fire pit and a heavy lid, and it adapts to a home kitchen with almost no change. The one thing to get right is the moisture: enough hot water to keep the bottom simmering while the top browns, topped up if it goes dry before the hour is out.
- ProportionsTwo parts potato to one part meat; the original does not say whether by volume or weight, though chopped volume is the easier reading. Roughly 4 cups chopped potato to 2 cups meat, plus one medium onion, should feed four.
- The meatAny cold roast works — beef, pork, lamb, corned beef, venison. It should already be cooked; this is a leftovers dish and raw meat will not cook through reliably in a covered pan of steaming potato.
- Butter and fat"Depending on amount of fat on meat" means judge it: a fatty pork shoulder may need none, lean roast beef or venison a spoonful or two. The original asks only for "a little" butter, but some fat helps the crust.
- Oven temperatureThe original names no heat, listing an oven, a Dutch oven or an inverted second pan as equal options. In a home oven a moderate setting, around 350-375F, will brown the hour-long bake without drying the middle. A cast-iron skillet or Dutch oven holds heat best.
- The waterAdd hot water only to the depth of a quarter inch or so, poured down the side rather than over the top. It steams the potato soft from below while the surface dries and colours; too much and you get a stew.
- The inverted panA second pan set upside down over the first is a makeshift lid, trapping steam. A Dutch oven lid or foil does the same. Uncover for the last 15 minutes if the top is still pale.
- Doneness"Brown but not dried out" — look for a set crust on the bottom that lifts in sheets when you get a spatula under it, with the interior still moist. Check at 45 minutes and add a splash of hot water if the pan has gone dry.