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Beef Hash, Polonaise
Pick off all the meat from the roast beef left over from yesterday and cut into small dice pieces; cut half the quantity cold, boiled potatoes into small shape. Heat two tablespoons melted butter in a saucepan, adding one finely chopped onion and one finely chopped green pepper; gently brown for ten minutes, occasionally stirring meanwhile, add the beef and potatoes, with half pint white broth, one gill tomato sauce and half teaspoon salt. Mix well, cover the pan, cook for five minutes on range, then set in oven for forty minutes; remove, dress on a hot, deep dish. Place one and a half tablespoons melted butter and three tablespoons bread crumbs in a frying pan, toss on the fire until a nice brown, drain off the butter (saving it for other occasions), sprinkle the bread crumbs over the hash and serve.
A leftover-roast hash of the sort a household cook made on Monday, finished with the browned crumbs that earn it the name. The original assumes you know how much beef you have; everything else scales from that.
- Quantity is unstatedNo weight of beef is given. Roughly a pound of cooked meat, diced, with half a pound of cooked potato, suits the half pint of broth and gill of tomato sauce here and feeds three or four.
- A gillHalf a cup, 4 fl oz. The half pint of broth is a full cup by American measure.
- White brothA pale unbrowned stock — veal or chicken. Any light stock works; a dark beef stock would make for a darker dish than the name suggests.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A moderate oven, around 350F, will do for a covered pan that only needs to hold at a simmer for forty minutes.
- Keep it coveredForty minutes uncovered with only a cup and a half of liquid will leave you with a dry pan. The lid goes on at the stovetop stage and stays on in the oven.
- "On the range"Stovetop, not a particular heat. Five minutes over medium is only to bring the whole thing up to a simmer before it goes in the oven.
- The crumbsFry them in butter until an even brown, then drain — draining is what keeps them crisp on top of a wet hash. They go on at the last moment, as the recipe has it, since they soften within minutes.
- Green pepperAn ordinary sweet bell pepper. Ten minutes with the onion in butter is meant to soften and lightly colour both, not to scorch them.
À la polonaise, Polish-style, in the French professional kitchen of the period generally meant one thing: a shower of breadcrumbs fried in butter, often with sieved hard-boiled egg and parsley, poured over at the last moment — the classic finish for asparagus or cauliflower. Here the garnish alone carries the name onto a dish of yesterday's roast, which tells you how loosely those national tags could be applied. The recipe itself is pure economy: cold roast beef reheated with onion, pepper and tomato, with the crumb topping to lift it from kitchen scraps to something a cook was willing to send to the table in a hot deep dish.