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Roast Beef Hash, Zingara
Carefully cut away all the meat from the roast beef remaining from yesterday; discard all the fat, then mince the beef into very small disc-shaped pieces. Mince the same quantity cold, boiled potatoes the same way as the beef. Place in a small saucepan one finely hashed green, sound pepper, one onion and one ounce lean, raw ham, also finely chopped, adding one and a half tablespoons melted butter; then cook on a slow fire for eight minutes, frequently stirring meanwhile. Add a teaspoon flour, stir well, then add the beef and potatoes; moisten with half pint hot broth or hot water and one large peeled and crushed red tomato. Season with half teaspoon salt, one saltspoon cayenne pepper and one saltspoon grated nutmeg; thoroughly mix and cook for five minutes. Cover the pan, then place in a hot oven to bake for forty minutes. Remove, mix well, pour into a hot dish, sprinkle a little chopped parsley over and serve.
A leftover-beef hash dressed up with the classic zingara flavourings: ham, sweet pepper, tomato. The original assumes you already have yesterday's roast and boiled potatoes on hand, and gives no quantity for either.
- QuantitiesThe beef and potato are given only as "the same quantity" of each, with no amount stated for either. Roughly 2 cups (about 10 oz) of each will make a dish for four, which suits the half pint of broth and the single onion and pepper.
- Old measuresA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so cayenne and nutmeg are each 1/4 tsp. Half a pint is one cup. One and a half tablespoons of melted butter is about 3/4 oz.
- Oven heatThe book does not define its terms; "hot oven" in period usage generally means somewhere in the region of 400-450F. For a covered pan of hash going in for forty minutes, 400F is safer against scorching the bottom; check at twenty-five minutes and add a splash of broth if it has gone dry.
- Chop, do not process"Disc-shaped pieces" calls for small, evenly hand-cut pieces. A food processor turns cold roast beef into paste, and the hash then bakes into a solid block rather than something with texture.
- Lean raw hamThis is uncooked cured ham -- prosciutto crudo, speck or a piece of unsmoked country ham. An ounce is a slice or two; its job is to season the fat at the start, so it should go in with the onion and pepper as directed.
- The tomatoOne "large peeled and crushed red tomato" is about 5-6 oz of pulp. Out of season, use a third of a 14 oz tin of chopped tomatoes, drained of most of its juice, or the moisture balance goes wrong.
- Sound pepper"Sound" simply means unblemished and firm. One medium green bell pepper, seeded and finely chopped.
- ServingServes four as a lunch or supper dish. An egg on top is a common accompaniment for hash generally, though this recipe calls only for chopped parsley; any browned edges that form in the oven are worth turning up into the mixture when you stir it at the end.
Zingara is French kitchen shorthand for "gypsy style," a nineteenth-century garnish built on julienned or chopped ham, tongue, mushroom and tomato, usually with a paprika or cayenne edge -- the spice being, on one common explanation, the whole of the supposed Romani connection, which says more about French culinary naming habits than about any actual cuisine. Applying the label to yesterday's roast beef is exactly the move this book is built on: Alexander Filippini worked at Delmonico's in New York, and his collections carry restaurant vocabulary down into thrift cookery, so a hash of scraps arrives with a proper menu name attached. The dish also documents a domestic rhythm now largely gone, in which a Sunday joint was expected to reappear on Monday, minced and rebuilt rather than merely reheated.