Hash

Hash

Hash is a dish that is based on pre-cooked potatoes chopped into small pieces with some sort of meat and often other vegetables added to it and it is warmed up in a skillet with some butter or other fat to help brown it. Modern recipes sometimes leave out the meat or cook it in other ways, but is that really hash?


Often it is made as a breakfast dish, but can be served at any meal and is a good way to use up leftovers. There were a lot of jokes in the late
19th and early 20th Century about the quality of boarding house hash and who hasn't heard about a subject being rehashed?

As for the meat, corned beef and roast beef are the most common since both of these are often cooked with potatoes and other vegetables. However there is nothing to stop you from pre-cooking some potatoes and using that with a quick to cook meat such as bacon and making this dish. It is a meal that can be prepped and then cooked quickly in situations where meal time might be dependent on when things get done and the crew needs to eat. It can even be cooked and then rewarmed as needed, all at once or in smaller amounts as needed.

Hash can really contain about anything, but if you call it roast beef hash most assume a roast beef/potato base, replace the roast beef with corned beef and you have corned beef hash although any meat can be used, when I smoke a turkey, some of it gets turned into hash, because I like hash and by making a large amount I can have leftovers for 2-3 meals.

Two types of hash you will see in old cook books have really colorful names. One is Bubble and Squeak, still popular in England and the other is Red Flannel Hash, said to have it's origins in New England.

Bubble and Squeak is roast beef hash in which about half of the potatoes are replaced with cabbage, either cooked or raw and the name comes from the noise the cabbage makes while it cooks. For anyone who has never fried cabbage either with potatoes or by itself, it makes a bit of noise, I shouldn't say it, but perhaps it's a sampling of what is to come later.

Red Flannel Hash is traditionally corned beef hash with about half the potatoes replaced with cooked beets. Now at first glance, many will say no how no way because it uses beets, one of the least popular vegetables, the earthy taste most object to is beets absorb more boron than other vegetables do. When mixed with the potatoes and corned beef this taste is masked and it always seems to be a hit when I make it, even among people who normally do not like beets.

This is another one that is really hard to just write down a recipe for since it is often made out of leftovers. But I will go ahead and do it so people have a guide. Like always amount needed for a serving varies with who you are feeding and how active they are, but since recipes often are for serving 10 we'll just go with that. One can adjust from there. Remember nothing has to be exact.

For this let's grab a 15 inch skillet or a 14 inch dutch oven or even larger, this being a dish that cooks better spread out.

2-3 pounds cooked meat
5 pounds cooked potatoes
1 large or 2 small onions
Salt and pepper to taste

Enough fat or oil of your choice to thinnly cover the bottom of the pan, my choice is either butter or bacon drippings.

Chop everything and mix.

Heat the fat in the pan to fairly hot, but not smoking, about 300F. Add the potato mix and let brown and turn, keep browning and turning till heated throughly, remove from heat and serve.

Any amount of the potatoes can be replaced with other cooked vegetables or raw chopped cabbage.

To add variety ½ pound to a pound of shredded or cut up cheese can be added when almost done and stirred till melted.

If I have leftover sour cream that needs used it goes in. If needed to stretch it more or add variety, when about done add a half a dozen to a dozen eggs and cook in.

I always have pepper sauce available to put on it because I like it that way.