Beef Hash

The busyness of the holidays echoes the level of activity in our urban homes this year. This year marks the first year we will not celebrate the holidays in the northeast, and whereas in New York City our traditions from baking to decorating unfold as a matter of due course, with the new location come the changes of celebrating in different ways in a different place. After over twenty years of collecting it, there was too much holiday cheer to ship to Los Angeles, so over Thanksgiving weekend we filled a couple of boxes with ornaments and other memory pieces collected over twenty holiday seasons together, and shipped them to sunny LA. We obtained a tree and spent a leisurely Sunday evening decorating it. How appropriate that this year, as we celebrate in a second home with a new tree, both of them are adorned with heirloom decorations.

That progression of a long past together through the context of major changes resulting in a fresh start has been the theme of 2012. This was the year that we set up a second household, as John’s work took him to Los Angeles while I remained in New York City. I have logged more air miles than I ever conceived myself doing as I commuted regularly between the two cities. I’ve written entire columns on planes, and how jet set I feel when I do so! It was a year of contradiction but compatibility as our relationship not only withstood the separation but the diametric change in lifestyle that accompanied it. After twenty plus years of the MTA, we now own a car. After twenty plus years of being denied the right to marry, we are finally married. And that, too, is a contradiction to be navigated, for while married, we have spent vast stretches of time apart this year, and it was the state of New York that granted us that marriage license to begin with.

In honor of contradictions, compatibilities, culminations, and just plain ol’ figuring it out as you go, the final Weeknight Dinner of 2012 is also the final Cooking for One of 2012. As a meal, hash is a jumble not just in the pan and on the plate but of compliments and contradictions: breakfast and dinner, leftovers and fresh ingredients, low-rent and high-end. It is also appropriate for this year where California cooking and steakhouses have been so prominent at Urban Home. Every good California road house from Mildred’s Fine Foods to Nick The Greek’s Place has hash on the menu, but then so does Keens in New York City. Though its origins are in northern and middle-European fire grates, hash as you and I know it is an American innovation, as familiar as the canned goods aisle in the supermarket, as comforting as the blue plate special at the local diner. In both, hash embodies two cooking styles we hold dear: the American Table and Grandma’s Kitchen.

Hash’s heyday was the wartime and post-war years. During those times, scrambles of hot hash topped with fried eggs fed many a family during shortages of both groceries and the funds to pay for them. This reflects hash’s origins in peasant kitchens in Europe as a way to stretch whatever meat was left in the cold house or the corning barrel by combining it with root vegetables, grains or eggs. Nowadays a hash means a jumble of anything (for example, time zones), but for kitchen hash, the jumble came after the blade. The name hash likely comes from the French verb hâcher, meaning to chop, for in those days before cutting boards or spatulas, hash was flash-cooked in the pan by chopping the ingredients and mashing them together with the blade of the household knife as the hash was cooking.

Here is my original recipe for hash. The recipe below is written for two to share for a simple, satisfying meal, but the recipe can be halved for dining alone. Hash uses leftover beef; save some from your Sunday roast beef supper or obtain a small side of corned beef from a good delicatessen. However you serve your hash – single or double, roast beef or corned – you can eat it for breakfast, lunch or dinner. When you do, you are making something useful and good out of something that some would say is throwaway. Who cares if it’s a jumble – it’s a jumble that brings nourishment and flavor just as surely as it creates order from discordance.

Corned- or Roast Beef Hash

Serve your hash with slices of sourdough toast or hot biscuits, and place a jar of chili sauce on the table for passing. Hash is traditionally cooked on cast iron, either a griddle or skillet, but if you don't have those, use a sautè pan. 

½ pound chunk cooked roast- or corned beef

1 large russet baking potato

1 small Spanish onion

1 small red bell pepper

1 medium clove garlic

½ tablespoon tomato paste

1 bottle Worcestershire sauce

1 or 2 large eggs

Unsalted butter

¼ teaspoon dried cayenne pepper

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Dried parsley

1.   Remove the beef from refrigeration and set aside.

2.   Fill a small bowl with cool water and add a shake of salt to the water.

3.   Peel the potato under cool water. Use the point of the knife to remove any eyes or other discolorations from the potato.

4.   Place the cleaned potato lengthwise on a cutting board devoted to vegetables. Cut the potato lengthwise into slices about 1/4 inch thick. Cut each slice lengthwise into a stick about 1/4 inch wide. Align the sticks and cut across them to form 1/4 inch dice. Scrape the diced potato into the bowl containing the water.

5.   Place a small bowl near the cutting board.

6.   Place the red pepper on the cutting board. Cut the pepper in half from cap to bottom. Cut away and discard the stem; cut away any pithy white from inside each half. Rinse each half under warm water to remove the seeds; if saving seeds for planting, do this step over a fine mesh sieve to catch the seeds. Cut off and discard the rounded top and bottom of each half and set aside. Flatten the remaining pepper, skin side down, against the cutting board. Cut each flattened half into 1/2-inch strips and cut across the strips to form 1/2-inch squares. Transfer half of the chopped red pepper to the bowl, reserving the remaining half for another use.

7.   Peel the onion and remove the root and stem ends. Place the onion on the cutting board. Halve the onion from root to stem; halve each half. Cut each quarter into thin crescents. Cut across the crescents to form dice. Scrape the diced onion into the bowl containing the pepper.

8.   Peel the garlic and remove the root end. Half each clove; remove and discard any sprouting from the center. Use a garlic press to press each clove into the bowl containing the onion and pepper.

9.   Add a shake of salt, several grindings of fresh black pepper and the cayenne pepper to the bowl containing the onions, peppers and garlic. Use a silicon spatula to mix the vegetables and seasonings together.

10. Unwrap the beef and place it on a clean cutting board devoted to meat. Safely use a strong, sharp knife to rough-cut the beef into cubes by following the grain of the meat and cutting along that to form slices. Stack the slices a few high at a time and cut those along the grain to form strips. Cut across the strips to form cubes.

11. Place a colander in the sink and drain the cubed potato into the colander. Give the colander a good shake to express as much water as possible.

12. Place a heavy sauté pan or cast iron skillet or griddle on the stovetop and turn the burner to medium-high. Place a pat of butter onto the cooking surface.

13. Once the butter melts, add the potatoes to the butter. Use the silicon spatula to turn the potatoes frequently as they cook until tender, approximately 8 minutes.

14. Once the potatoes are tender, add another pat of butter to the pan. Add the seasoned vegetable mixture to the pan.

15. Measure the tomato paste into the pan.

16. Use the silicon spatula to mix the vegetables as they cook until tender, approximately 5 minutes.

17. Once the vegetables are soft, fragrant and beginning to exhibit cooked edges, add the beef to the pan. Season the mixture with several shakes of Worcestershire sauce.

18. Use the silicon spatula to mix the hash as it cooks through, approximately 3 minutes. If the pan runs dry, add another pat of butter to the mixture.

19. Once the hash is cooked through, use the silicon spatula to scrape the hash onto a serving plate/plates. Cover the plates to keep them warm while you fry the eggs.

20. Add a pat of butter to the pan you cooked the hash in; swirl the pan to melt the butter.

21. Working quickly, crack an egg/s into the hot butter. Season the egg/s with salt and pepper. Fry sunny side up until the egg/s are set how you like them.

22. Turn off the burner.

23.Uncover the plate/s containing the hash and slide an egg onto each serving of hash. Sprinkle the eggs and hash with dried parsley. Serve immediately.