Hash Piquante
Make a sauce as follows: Peel and slice two onions and fry in two tablespoons of butter till well browned. Now add one-half pint of good stock, one dessertspoon of worcestershire sauce, one of tarragon vinegar, and one heaping teaspoon of curry powder, a little sugar and salt and pepper. Let the mixture come to a boil, and then simmer, stirring occasionally, for one-half hour. Thicken it with one tablespoon of flour mixed to a smooth cream in just sufficient cold stock to moisten, letting it boil well. Put into this sauce one pound of cold mutton, sliced and freed from all fat, skin, etc., and just heat through. Serve with potatoes or round croutons of toast.
A reheated-meat dish built on a sharp curry-and-vinegar sauce. The only real technique is restraint at the end.
- Do not cook the meatThe mutton is already cooked; it goes into the finished sauce only to warm through, two or three minutes over low heat. Simmering it will make it stringy and dry.
- MeasuresA dessertspoon is roughly two teaspoons. Half a pint of stock is one cup (the book uses the American pint of 16 oz). One pound of sliced cold meat serves three, or four with plenty of potato.
- MuttonMature sheep is scarce in most markets. Leftover roast leg of lamb is the direct substitute; cold roast beef also works.
- Curry powderCommercial curry powder of this period tended to be milder and more turmeric-forward than many current blends. Add half, taste after the sauce has simmered, then add the rest.
- Tarragon vinegarStill sold, and worth using here rather than plain wine vinegar; the anise note is much of what makes the sauce piquante. White wine vinegar with a bruised tarragon sprig steeped for an hour is a fair stand-in.
- Browning the onions"Well browned" means genuinely deep gold, ten to fifteen minutes over medium heat, not merely softened. Along with the pinch of sugar, this is where the sauce's sweetness comes from.
- ThickeningThe flour slurry must boil for a couple of minutes to lose its raw taste, and this should happen before the meat goes in. Whisk it in off the boil to avoid lumps, then return to a simmer.
- CroutonsRound croutons of toast means bread cut with a cutter and toasted or fried in butter, arranged around the dish. They serve the same purpose as the potatoes: soaking up sauce.
Piquant hashes like this one belong to the economy of the large Victorian and Edwardian household, where a Sunday joint of mutton was expected to reappear through the week in progressively more disguised forms. The strategy was often the same: rather than reheat the meat in its own gravy, cooks built a strongly flavored sauce — curry powder, Worcestershire, a flavored vinegar — that could carry cold, slightly dried meat and make it read as a new dish. Curry powder had by then long been a familiar British pantry item, sold ready-blended, and was well established in American kitchens too; it was used less as Indian cookery than as a general savory seasoning, much as paprika or chili powder are used now. Butterick, better known for dress patterns, published its cook book in this same practical register, aimed at the woman running a household on a budget and needing the second and third appearances of a roast to be worth eating.