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Hash
1 to 2 cups chopped meat 2 cups cubed potato 1 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper 1 teaspoon mixed onion or celery Enough milk, water or stock to moisten teaspoon pepper 1 teaspoon mixed onion Enough milk, water or celery stock to moisten 3 to 4 tablespoons butter Any available left-over meat may be used, taking about equal parts of meat and potato. Chop meat first, then add potato and chop together. Season. Melt fat (1 tablespoon to each cup of hash) in frying pan, spread hash in evenly and cook slowly for 20 minutes. Shake the pan occasionally to prevent sticking. The hash may be put in a buttered pan and baked in the oven. . 2 cups cold cooked meat (chicken, beef, veal or lamb) 2 cups meat stock
The text as printed is scrambled — the ingredient list has been split, with fragments landing above and below the method — but the working proportions are clear: equal parts chopped cooked meat and cooked potato, seasoning, a little liquid to moisten, and fat for the pan.
- The hinge: leave it aloneSpread the hash evenly, then resist stirring. Twenty minutes over low-to-medium heat builds the browned crust that distinguishes hash from warmed-up leftovers; shake the pan rather than turning the contents.
- "1 teaspoon mixed onion"Almost certainly a garbled rendering of "minced onion." A teaspoon is very little for four cups of hash — a quarter to a half of a small onion, minced and softened in the butter first, is nearer what the dish wants.
- Fat ratioOne tablespoon per cup of hash is the rule given, so four cups takes about 4 tablespoons. Butter alone browns fast at low heat; a mix of butter and a neutral oil gives more room for error.
- Moistening liquidAdd liquid a tablespoon at a time. The mixture should hold together when pressed, not slump. The stray "2 cups meat stock" at the end appears to belong to another, looser preparation caught up in the scrambled text; it would drown a skillet hash.
- PotatoCold boiled or steamed potato, firm and a day old, chops without turning to paste. Freshly boiled or floury baked potato will go gluey when worked with the meat.
- Chopping orderThe instruction to chop the meat first, then add potato, is deliberate — it keeps the potato in visible pieces rather than reducing everything to a uniform mash.
- The baked versionThe recipe gives no temperature or time for the oven route, only a buttered pan. A moderate oven, around 375F for 30 to 40 minutes until the top is set and browned, is a workable modern reading; a little extra liquid helps, since nothing is being turned or shaken.
- YieldFour cups of finished hash serves three to four as a main course, with a poached or fried egg on top if you want to stretch it.
Hash is a thrift dish of long standing — the name comes from the French hacher, to chop. Books issued by insurance companies and utilities in the early twentieth century, of which the Metropolitan Life cookbook is one of the best known, were distributed free to policyholders and leaned hard on economy: nothing cooked once should be thrown away. The recipe here calls for equal parts meat and potato, and offers the alternative of baking rather than frying.