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Hashed Brown Potatoes
Try out fat salt pork cut in small cubes, remove scraps ; there should be about one-third cup of fat. Add two cups cold boiled potatoes finely chopped, one-eighth teaspoon pepper, and salt if needed. Mix potatoes thoroughly with fat; cook three minutes, stirring constantly; let stand to brown underneath. Fold as an omelet and turn on hot platter.
Sautéd Potatoes Cut cold boiled potatoes in one-fourth inch slices, season with salt and pepper, put in a hot, well-greased frying-pan, brown on one side, turn and brown on other side.
Two potato dishes run together in the original: hashed browns built on rendered salt pork fat, and a simpler sautéed slice. Both assume you already have cold boiled potatoes on hand.
- The hinge: leave it aloneAfter the initial three minutes of stirring, the pan must be left undisturbed so a crust forms on the bottom. Anything more than an occasional shake of the pan and you get a scramble rather than a cake you can fold.
- "Try out" the porkThis means render it slowly over moderate heat until the cubes give up their fat and shrink to crisp scraps, which are then lifted out. Start it in a cold pan; high heat browns the outside before the interior fat melts.
- One-third cup of fatThat is about 5 tablespoons for two cups of potato, and it is what makes the crust. Something in the region of 4 to 6 oz of fat salt pork should render that much, depending on how lean the piece is. Bacon fat works; salt pork is milder and less smoky, which is closer to the intent.
- Salt "if needed"The pork fat carries salt, so taste before adding more. Salt pork sold today varies a great deal in cure strength.
- Cold boiled potatoesBoiled and thoroughly chilled, ideally the day before. Warm potatoes shed starch and steam, and the hash will not crisp. Russets give a fluffier interior, waxy potatoes hold their chop better.
- Pan choiceCast iron or heavy carbon steel, 8 to 10 inches. Two cups of potato in a wide skillet spreads too thin to fold; too narrow and it will not brown through.
- Realistic timingThree minutes of stirring, then figure 8 to 12 minutes over medium heat before the underside is set and brown enough to fold. Loosen an edge with a spatula and look rather than going by the clock.
- YieldTwo cups of chopped potato feeds two as a side dish, or one at breakfast. The sautéed version scales more easily since it needs only a single layer in the pan.
Hashed browns belong to the American hotel and boarding-house breakfast of the late nineteenth century, and the name simply describes the method: potatoes hashed, meaning chopped fine, then browned. The placement of the dish in a long chapter of potato preparations, generally attributed to Fannie Farmer and the Boston Cooking School, reflects an economy in which cold boiled potatoes left from dinner became the next morning's meal rather than waste. The fat salt pork here is worth noting as a period marker: before commercial shortening and cheap bottled oils, rendered pork fat was one of the cooking mediums at hand, and the crisp scraps left behind were themselves eaten or scattered over beans and chowder. The cake is folded like an omelet, rather than served flat or in loose fragments.