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Lamb's Liver Hash
Chop fine some left-over liver and heart which have been steamed or sautéd. Add nearly twice as much seasoned left-over or fresh mashed potatoes.
Moisten well with stock or gravy, add more seasoning, put into pan with hot bacon fat, and sauté slowly until a brown crust has formed underneath. Fold hash over in pan, turn out on platter, and dress with plenty of fresh parsley.
Lamb's liver is excellent and inexpensive, and should be more generally used.
A straightforward skillet hash built on already-cooked offal, and it depends almost entirely on getting the crust right before the liver overcooks.
- The hinge: leave it aloneThe whole dish is the brown crust underneath. Press the mixture into an even layer in the pan and do not stir or poke it — eight to twelve minutes over medium-low heat, then fold it like an omelette and turn it out.
- Liver is already cookedSince the liver and heart went in steamed or sautéed, the pan time is only there to heat through and crust. Any extra minutes turn liver grainy and heart tough, which is often blamed for a dislike of both.
- Proportions"Nearly twice as much" potato means about 2 cups mashed to a generous cup of chopped meat. The starch also helps: it binds the hash so it holds a crust and softens the mineral edge of the liver.
- Bacon fatUse 2 to 3 tablespoons in a well-seasoned cast-iron or heavy nonstick skillet, 9 to 10 inches. Bacon fat is doing flavour work here, not just lubrication; butter alone will scorch before the crust sets.
- Moisten wellAim for a mixture that mounds on a spoon but is not stiff — roughly 1/4 to 1/2 cup stock or gravy depending on how dry the mashed potato is. Too wet and it steams instead of browning.
- SeasoningLiver and heart need more salt than you expect, plus black pepper and a good hit of acid or allium — a spoonful of sharp mustard, a little grated onion, or a squeeze of lemon at the table. The parsley finish is not decoration; it cuts the richness.
- Sourcing todayLamb's liver (called lamb's fry in Britain and Australia) and lamb heart are special-order items at most counters. If starting from raw, slice liver thin and sauté until just cooked through before chopping; simmer heart until tender first, as it is dense muscle.
- YieldAbout 3 cups of hash, enough for two as a main course or four alongside eggs.
The Cook Book of Left Overs belongs to a genre that flourished in American and British kitchens from roughly the turn of the century through the Second World War, when household economy was a respectable branch of domestic science and a cook was expected to account for every scrap. The closing line — "should be more generally used" — is the book arguing a case, at a time when offal is often said to have been losing status in urban households even as it stayed cheap and plentiful. Hash itself is among the oldest forms of leftover cookery: the word comes from the French hacher, to chop, and the technique of binding minced cooked meat with potato and frying it into a cake appears across Europe under many names, from Irish and English fry-ups to the Scandinavian pytt i panna. What dates this particular version is the assumption that mashed potato, stock or gravy, and bacon fat are all simply on hand — the residue of a kitchen that cooked every day and threw very little away.