No. 2297

Hashed Mutton a la Omer Pacha

Hachis de Mouton a la Omer Pacha

Suppress all the fat, sinews and skin in order to obtain one pound of lean, cold leg of mutton; chop it up finely and place it in a bain-marie (Fig. 122) with four tablespoonfuls of reduced sauce; add to this some cooked fine herbs (No. 385) and chopped parsley, seasoning with salt, pepper and nutmeg; add meat-glaze (No. 402) and a piece of fresh butter. Fry in hot clarified butter some peeled tomatoes, cut across in two and slightly pressed out; season them with salt, mignonette and chopped parsley, and dress these halved fried tomatoes in a ring with the hash laid in the center; decorate the top with fried croutons of bread cut in the shape of crescents.

← No. 2296 Hashed Lamb with Bananas Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2298 Partridge Hash a la Clemenceau →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

A leftover-mutton dish dressed up for the table, and like most of Ranhofer's entrées it assumes a kitchen with stock reductions already on hand. Substitute good demi-glace and it comes together in half an hour.

Keep it in the bain-marieThe hash is warmed through over water, never boiled or fried. Already-cooked mutton reheated at a simmer turns dry and stringy; the point of the water bath is to hold it below that.
"Reduced sauce"Most likely a reduced brown sauce (espagnole cooked down), close to what is now sold as demi-glace, though the recipe itself does not say which sauce is meant. Four tablespoons of a good commercial demi-glace, or homemade brown stock reduced to a syrupy consistency, does the job.
Meat-glaze (No. 402)Glace de viande: brown stock reduced until it sets to a rubbery jelly. A teaspoon is plenty for a pound of meat; it is there for gloss and depth, not bulk. Skip it rather than substitute a bouillon cube, which will only add salt.
Cooked fine herbs (No. 385)In The Epicurean this is a cooked mixture of chopped shallot and mushroom with parsley and often a little white wine, closer to a duxelles than to raw fines herbes. A tablespoon or two of finely chopped mushroom and shallot sweated in butter stands in well.
MignonetteCoarsely cracked white peppercorns, not a vinaigrette. Crack them in a mortar or under a pan; the coarse grind is what distinguishes it from ordinary ground pepper.
MuttonRarely sold in North America now. A pound of cold roast leg of lamb gives the same result with a milder flavour; trim the fat and sinew as instructed, since cold lamb fat is waxy and will not melt back into the hash.
The tomatoesHalve across the equator, squeeze out seeds and juice, and fry cut side down in clarified butter over decent heat so they colour rather than stew. Regular butter will brown and burn before they are done.
CroutonsBread stamped with a round cutter used off-centre gives the crescent. Fry in clarified butter until crisp and drain; they go on at the last moment or they soften into the hash.
YieldA pound of meat with the garnish serves four as a light entrée, two as a main course.

A Little History

Omer Pasha — also written Omar Pasha — was Mihailo Latas, a Serb from the Austrian military frontier who converted to Islam, rose to command Ottoman armies, and became a household name in Western Europe during the Crimean War of 1853-56. French kitchens signalled the connection with tomatoes, and here a hash bound with brown sauce rather than cream. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's for over thirty years, gathered these into The Epicurean (1894) alongside a great many other numbered formulas, and the hash sections of the book are a reminder that even the grandest American restaurant of the period was expected to do something dignified with yesterday's roast leg.