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Corned-Beef Hash
This dish is most acceptably prepared by using some of the fat meat chopped with the lean. To two cups of meat chopped rather coarse, allow two cups of chopped potatoes. If the meat is all lean, pour two tablespoonfuls of melted butter over the potatoes before mixing them with the beef.
Moisten well with milk or stock, using at least onehalf cup of liquid. Season with salt and pepper. Melt a little butter in a frying-pan, put in the hash, cover tightly, and cook slowly on the cool part of the stove for at least half an hour. It should be brown and crusty on the bottom. If it is not, increase the heat just before turning out.
A sound method that still beats most modern hash recipes, provided you respect the two things it insists on: fat in the mix and a long, slow, undisturbed cook.
- Don't stir itThe half hour under a tight lid over low heat exists to build the crust. Once the hash is pressed into the pan, leave it alone; every stir breaks the browned layer and you start again.
- "The cool part of the stove"On a wood or coal range this was the edge of the top, well away from the firebox. On a gas or electric burner that means low heat; the hash should sizzle faintly, not spit. The book gives no temperature.
- Fat is not optionalCorned brisket point or a fatty piece of the flat gives the hash its texture. If your corned beef is all lean flat cut, use the two tablespoons of melted butter as directed, or a little rendered beef fat.
- PotatoesThe recipe does not specify, but a half-hour covered cook implies already-cooked potatoes, chopped, rather than raw; left-over boiled potatoes are the likely assumption. Freshly boiled and cooled ones work as well, and cold ones chop more cleanly than warm.
- Chop, do not grind"Rather coarse" points to knife-cut pieces rather than anything fine. A food processor turns corned beef to paste and the hash will be pudding-like rather than craggy.
- LiquidThe half cup of milk or stock is a minimum for two cups of meat and two of potato. It should look moist, not wet; too much and the bottom steams instead of crusting.
- SaltCorned beef is already heavily salted, so season the potatoes and taste before adding more. Pepper generously.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; four cups of mixture will serve roughly two generously or three modestly. A skillet that holds the hash at a decent depth suits it better than a very wide one.
Corned-beef hash belongs to the left-over economy of the period: a large piece of salt beef boiled for a Sunday or holiday dinner, often with cabbage and root vegetables, with the remains chopped up with potatoes for a weekday breakfast or supper. "Corned" refers to the coarse grains, or corns, of salt used to cure the beef, a usage well established in English long before American cookbooks adopted it. Hash itself comes from the French hacher, to chop. What distinguishes this version is its insistence on fat meat mixed with the lean and on a slow covered cook rather than a fast fry; the author is describing the coolest part of a coal or wood range, which gave the kitchen a permanently available low heat.