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Chuck, Sirloin and Porter-House
FIRST AND SECOND CUTS, PRIME RIB ROAST
large enough to season well the hash into a frying-pan and then put in the meat and potato, salt and pepper; moisten with beef gravy or hot water, and cover; let it steam or heat through thoroughly, stirring occasionally to mix it evenly and also to keep it from sticking. When done it should be neither watery nor dry, but just firm enough to stand well when dished. If onion is liked, fry two or three slices in the butter before the hash is added.
What survives here is the finishing method for a skillet hash built from cold roast beef and boiled potatoes — the part cooks usually get wrong. The quantities of meat, potato and butter are not stated in the text as it stands, so work from the standard proportions below.
- ProportionsThe text gives none. Roughly equal volumes of chopped cooked beef and cold boiled potato works, leaning to more potato when the joint was small. Chop both to a coarse dice rather than mincing to paste.
- "Butter large enough to season well""[Butter] large enough to season well" (the word is missing from the fragment but implied by the later "fry two or three slices in the butter") -- For about a quart of chopped meat and potato, 2 to 3 tablespoons of butter in a heavy 10-inch skillet is a workable amount. It is there for flavour and to keep the bottom from catching, not to fry the hash.
- The moistening liquidAdd the gravy or hot water a few tablespoons at a time — 1/4 cup is usually enough. The finished hash should hold its shape on the plate; too much liquid and it slumps, too little and it turns to dry crumbs.
- Heat and timeMedium heat, covered, 10 to 15 minutes. The meat is already cooked, so the object is only to heat through and marry the flavours.
- Stirring versus crustThe instruction to stir occasionally keeps this version soft and even. For a browned bottom crust instead, press it flat, leave it undisturbed 5 to 7 minutes, then fold it over once.
- OnionTwo or three slices means slices cut from a whole onion, a modest quantity rather than a whole one. Soften them in the butter until translucent before the hash goes in; raw onion added with the meat will still be crunchy when the rest is hot.
- SaltSeason lightly at first. Cooked roast beef trimmings are already seasoned, and the gravy adds more.
- YieldA quart of chopped hash of this kind serves three to four as a main dish, with eggs or toast.
Hash takes its name from the French hacher, to chop, and in nineteenth-century American households it was less a dish than an obligation: the roast appeared hot on Sunday, cold on Monday, and chopped in the skillet on Tuesday. The insistence that the hash be "neither watery nor dry, but just firm enough to stand well when dished" is often taken as the period's standard for the dish hough judbeing judged on whether it held its shape on the plate.