Beef Hash
Chop, not too fine, cold steak or roast beef and twice the quantity of cold boiled potatoes. Put a piece of butter
The text as printed breaks off mid-instruction ("Put a piece of butter"), so what survives is the proportion and the knife work rather than the cooking. Both of those are the parts that decide whether hash is good.
- The proportion is the recipeTwice as much cold boiled potato as cold beef. The book does not say whether that is measured by bulk or by weight, and gives no quantities, but the ratio is what keeps the hash from being dry crumbled meat.
- "Not too fine"Chop to roughly quarter-inch pieces with a knife. A food processor turns cold roast beef into paste, which will never brown and will taste pasty rather than crusted.
- Cold, and boiled the day beforeWarm or freshly boiled potatoes break down and go gluey when they hit the pan. Chilled boiled potatoes hold their edges and take on a crust.
- "A piece of butter"The book gives no quantity; period recipes often gauge butter by a lump the size of a walnut, which is in the region of 2 tablespoons for a skillet's worth. Beef drippings or a mix of butter and oil browns more reliably, since butter alone scorches at hash-crisping heat.
- How the missing half would have goneHow the missing half might have gone -- a plausible reconstruction: melt the fat in a heavy skillet, spread the mixture in an even layer, season with salt and pepper, and leave it undisturbed over moderate heat until a brown crust forms before turning or folding. None of this survives in the printed text, so the timing and any added moisture are guesswork.
- YieldAbout a pound of beef with two pounds of potatoes would feed four as a main dish. The book gives no quantities at all, only the proportion.
Hash is thrift cookery, and the word comes from the French hacher, to chop; recipes for hashed meats appear in English-language cookery books well before this one. The pairing of chopped beef with twice its bulk of cold boiled potato was common in American kitchens in the later nineteenth century. Corned beef hash, the version that survived into cans and diners, is the same formula with a cured cut substituted.