eG Cook-Off 58: Hash

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Hash is the only way to get rid of the Thanksgiving turkey! Or Christmas leg of lamb or pork. Or the last days of a roast chicken. Anything goes, along with whatever leftover gravy or sauce there was.

I always add a splash of heavy cream at the end, turn up the heat and let it sear, then use a spatula to lift from the pan. No sticking in a cast iron pan.

[Anna N]

Not a very good photo but I made duck hash according to this recipe. Very tasty.

[David Ross]

Well, it's becoming apparent to me that unlike some of the other dishes that we've discussed in previous Cook-Offs,( Bolognese Sauce and Cassoulet), that hash is more closely tied to personal tastes rather than regional or cultural traditions. That's not necessarily a bad thing but an interesting contrast that came to mind.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Perhaps, David, this is an outgrowth of the upscale brunch cafe, like Margaret Fox's Cafe Beaujolais in Mendocino or Upstairs Cafe at Chez Panise, where things like hash and omelets took modern turns. Additions like artichokes and sunchokes, sweet potatoes, fennel, butternut squash. They all work. Ergo, most anything goes.

But sticking to tradition, let's not forget beets and the famous "red flannel hash" of New England.

[David Ross]

Perhaps, David, this is an outgrowth of the upscale brunch cafe, like Margaret Fox's Cafe Beaujolais in Mendocino or Upstairs Cafe at Chez Panise, where things like hash and omelets took modern turns. Additions like artichokes and sunchokes, sweet potatoes, fennel, butternut squash. They all work. Ergo, most anything goes.

But sticking to tradition, let's not forget beets and the famous "red flannel hash" of New England.

As a small child would say when confronted with anything with beets in it--yuck!

[Margaret Pilgrim]

As a small child would say when confronted with anything with beets in it--yuck!

As a toddler, I was infamous for accepting a spoonful of beets then blowing them all over the kitchen.

Now, I love them. My husband had similar issues, but now is a convert, and our daughter-in-law finds them food of the gods.

It's called evolutionary progress.

However, in corned or roast beef hash, they are a classic and stunning addition. Think rubies for breakfast.

[Katie Meadow]

I come down on the side of "not too large" ingredients, but I don't like a big mush, either. So my potatoes usually get cut into very small cubes that hold together with other ingredients on the fork. No spearing involved, but also you wouldn't want to eat it with a spoon. I never heard of putting cream in hash, but it sounds good. I didn't grow up kosher by any stretch of the imagination, but nor did my parents ever pour dairy products into a pot full of meat.

"OMG what am I going to do with all this duck fat?" were words never spoken in my childhood. Too bad I didn't grow up on a farm in France. Then my mother might have learned to make a decent cassoulet and I would have been weaned on duck confit hash instead or corned beef from a can. (Yes, a can. I'm sure my dad never corned a beef in his life.) To add insult to injury, he also ate it with ketchup. And I don't mean catsup. Catsup is found on the rug before you take Snowball to the vet.

The whole idea of hash is to throw in whatever you think goes and whatever you need to use up, no? If all you've got is cows, spuds and onions, then that's your hash. My dad's corned beef hash was always exactly the same; he had plenty of rules for the four things he ever cooked and never improvised. His four things were good, but he would have been useless on a desert island. And he would have been horrified at the idea of red flannel hash. Beets are for borscht, aren't they?

[Margaret Pilgrim]

...I never heard of putting cream in hash, but it sounds good. I didn't grow up kosher by any stretch of the imagination, but nor did my parents ever pour dairy products into a pot full of meat....

It's not at all uncommon, for instance...

[Mjx]

Reviewing the photos above, I realize that I have an irrational bias: I assert that hash must not be discrete chunks of stuff (a la Alcuin's version) but rather should be an amalgamation of meat, potato, onion, and so on (a la David Ross's version). One should be able to scoop up a forkful of hash and get a bit of each ingredient; one should not have to skewer items kebab-style.

Thus the role of potatoes as both brick and mortar is crucial: a proper hash has both large-ish, firmer chunks of potato and well-cooked, mashed-up binder flesh as well. If it's just big chunks, it ain't hash.

Anyone share this irrational bias?

It kind of makes sense, although I don't have any personal bias at all; I've never had hash (although I've had biksemad), not even sure I've ever even looked at any before this, and am likely to make a hash that is at least small, partly discrete chunks of meat and... well, hokkaido.

Although I'm telling myself that without potatoes, it's not really hash, so I can't include my version here, if it has no potato (but... there's also the argument that the basic hash premise involves the using-up of odds and ends of meat and starch). and I love potatoes. On the other hand, if I make it with potatoes, I'm going to be in pretty poor shape after I eat it, and hokkaido as somewhat 'potato-y' texture, so I'm tossing this back and forth in my mind.

[Alcuin]

I guess it depends on what you like out of something that's "hashed." I love hashed brussels sprouts, but I don't grind them down to a fine grain with an hachoir either like some people do when they hash sprouts. I put them in the food processor using the slicing blade and get nice fine slices, fine enough for me to call it hash but not so fine that it becomes mush. But this gets us into the hazy territory about the relationship between the noun "hash" and the verb "to hash." I'm unsure of how close they should be really.

There's a good range of sizes, depending on what you want to do. I think if I wanted hash to be a side dish, or just one element of a breakfast plate, I'd want it mushier. If it's center stage, I want it meatier. Maybe I'll have to try that same dish (or something similar) in a finer grain and see which one I like best though...

[Katie Meadow]

Margaret, that recipe looks excellent. I love the idea of tossing in leftover greens, which I do sometimes have. Leftover beets are also not unknown to me. It's the corned beef that's a mystery, frankly.

[Katie Meadow]

Hey, my hash turned out great! Minimal ingredients, since I'm trying to use up stuff before going away for a long weekend. I think refrigerating the par-boiled potatoes is an excellent technique; it was a snap to then mince them into perfect little cubes (smaller than 1/4 inch.) Above thread there are several advocates for using russets. There didn't seem to be any down side to using yukon golds.

I weighed the virtues of bacon fat or oil, but went with just butter. First I sauteed some onion until golden, and removed it from the pan. Into the pan went the potatoes with ample butter; I stirred occasionally until they started to brown. Then I added back the onion, a couple of minced jalapenos that were not super hot, salt, a modest amount of dried Mexican oregano and fresh thyme and a sprinkle of paprika. I sort of turned the hash once or twice until it seemed nice and crisp, added a small amount of shredded ham and cooked it a few minutes more. My new non-stick pan worked way better than I thought it would.

About the onion. I have no idea if what I did was unnecessarily fussy, cooking the onions partially and then removing them, but for some reason I decided that if I put in the onion and the potato in at the same time the moisture from the onion might prevent the potato from getting crispy. And in the end, I think the onion needed a bit more total cooking time than the potatoes. So perhaps it would work equally well to halfway cook the onions, which would eliminate some moisture, and then simply add the potatoes to the pan and continue to cook.

With it we had a simple no-mayo kohlrabi and cabbage slaw and fresh baked warm cornbread. I had planned to serve the hash with a fried egg draped on top, but didn't remember until we were already eating. So much for short-term memory. There was no dessert, but it struck me that a baked apple in a puddle of cream would have been awfully nice.

[David Ross]

That sounds delicious. I'm working on "Hash #3" starting tonight-smoking a side of Sockeye Salmon for a Smoked Salmon Hash. I'll do the same recipe as the Corned Beef Hash-baked, chopped/processed potato, evaporated milk, chopped/shredded salmon. I'll do the poached egg again, but maybe a different sauce this time other than Hollandaise. I'm still thinking about the sauce at this point. Should I just do a lemony Hollandaise or something else for the Salmon Hash?

[Lindsey]

Am experimenting at work to try to make good old Scottish Stovies that look even semi presentable, these are just a theme on hash but boiled together rather than fried. The potatoes are softened in the beef gravy so a good stock foundation is important.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

That sounds delicious. I'm working on "Hash #3" starting tonight-smoking a side of Sockeye Salmon for a Smoked Salmon Hash. I'll do the same recipe as the Corned Beef Hash-baked, chopped/processed potato, evaporated milk, chopped/shredded salmon. I'll do the poached egg again, but maybe a different sauce this time other than Hollandaise. I'm still thinking about the sauce at this point. Should I just do a lemony Hollandaise or something else for the Salmon Hash?

Sorrel?

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Ahaa! I have maybe a half pound of grilled skirt steak that needs attending and was thinking of chopping it up and making a parmentier. But maybe hash is the easier answer. Thanks, group!

[Katie Meadow]

That sounds delicious. I'm working on "Hash #3" starting tonight-smoking a side of Sockeye Salmon for a Smoked Salmon Hash. I'll do the same recipe as the Corned Beef Hash-baked, chopped/processed potato, evaporated milk, chopped/shredded salmon. I'll do the poached egg again, but maybe a different sauce this time other than Hollandaise. I'm still thinking about the sauce at this point. Should I just do a lemony Hollandaise or something else for the Salmon Hash?

Sorrel?

Maybe something bright to serve on the side like a raita or just sour cream/creme fraiche/greek yogurt with cucumbers and fresh dill?

[David Ross]

That sounds delicious. I'm working on "Hash #3" starting tonight-smoking a side of Sockeye Salmon for a Smoked Salmon Hash. I'll do the same recipe as the Corned Beef Hash-baked, chopped/processed potato, evaporated milk, chopped/shredded salmon. I'll do the poached egg again, but maybe a different sauce this time other than Hollandaise. I'm still thinking about the sauce at this point. Should I just do a lemony Hollandaise or something else for the Salmon Hash?

Sorrel?

Maybe something bright to serve on the side like a raita or just sour cream/creme fraiche/greek yogurt with cucumbers and fresh dill?

Thanks for the ideas. I'm combining them with a few other items and I think I'm close to the sauce for my smoked salmon hash.

[David Ross]

Tonight I did a Smoked Salmon Hash using some of the basic techniques from the first hash.

Russet potato, baked then chilled overnight, (as used in Hash #2). On day two I pulsed the potato in the food processor-

Next up was some alderwood smoked Coho salmon from Seattle. The salmon I smoke at home doesn't come close to the quality of the commercial smoked salmon we have in the Northwest. This salmon was brined and then smoked, giving it both a sweet, yet salty, smokey flavor. Alder is found throughout our forests on the West side of the State-

This salmon was very moist and tender so I didn't want to destroy it in the food processor. I just flaked it by hand and rough cut it into small pieces-

The salmon and potato were combined with onion, parsely, chives and Worcestershire sauce and evaporated milk, (as used in Hash #2). I also added some applewood smoked salt from Yakima, Washington, home to some of the great Washington apple orchards-

Rather than a poached egg, I made a sauce, (thanks to the above suggestions), that was a mix of both Greek yogurt and sour cream, lemon juice, dill pickle relish, diced cucumber, dill and chives. I didn't want a traditional tartar sauce based in mayonnaise because I thought it would be too thick and rich for the salmon. This style of "tartar" sauce was much lighter yet more tangy and went perfectly with the smoked salmon. For some reason I garnished the hash with some pickled ginger. I didn't really know how it would work with the other flavors but I figured I needed something pickled to cut through the rich smoked salmon. It ended up giving a nice accent to the hash-

[Chris Hennes]

I'm going to make a hash with a leftover chunk of sous vide 72 hour brisket, I think tomorrow for dinner. I'd like to get a texture in between what David is getting with his baking and food-processor technique and hand-dicing: potato that is sort of the texture of Ore-Ida hash browns. Any ideas how to do that?

[David Ross]

I'm going to make a hash with a leftover chunk of sous vide 72 hour brisket, I think tomorrow for dinner. I'd like to get a texture in between what David is getting with his baking and food-processor technique and hand-dicing: potato that is sort of the texture of Ore-Ida hash browns. Any ideas how to do that?

So I'm curious. What is the texture of a sous vide 72-hour brisket? Is it really soft? I'm wondering how it will breakdown when cooking in a hash?

For the potatoes, you might want to employ my baked technique, cool overnight in the fridge. Then instead of pulsing/dicing like I did in the processor, gently shave the potato on a large box grater. That might give you the Ore-Ida hash brown texture.

[Chris Hennes]

The sous vide brisket has had basically all the collagen between the long muscle strands melted away, so if you cut it across the grain it's melt-in-your-mouth tender. But if you instead shred it along the fibers you wind up with a sort of unique texture that I was hoping to take advantage of in the hash.

[David Ross]

The sous vide brisket has had basically all the collagen between the long muscle strands melted away, so if you cut it across the grain it's melt-in-your-mouth tender. But if you instead shred it along the fibers you wind up with a sort of unique texture that I was hoping to take advantage of in the hash.

Interesting. I'll be looking forward to photos and how you feel the texture works in the hash. And of course how it tastes!

[Chris Hennes]

I'm still pondering how to get the potato texture I want: I'm not convinced baking them ahead will do the trick. I'm thinking I want to food-process them raw, to ensure that the piece stay in discrete chunks. Maybe then cook the potato sous vide so that it doesn't turn to mush? Then bring the beef up to temp at the last minute, toss together, and sear?

[David Ross]

I'm still pondering how to get the potato texture I want: I'm not convinced baking them ahead will do the trick. I'm thinking I want to food-process them raw, to ensure that the piece stay in discrete chunks. Maybe then cook the potato sous vide so that it doesn't turn to mush? Then bring the beef up to temp at the last minute, toss together, and sear?

Just be careful if you process the potatoes raw. As you know they have a lot of starch and the speed of the processor could turn the potato into glue. I've never tried it that way so I say try it and see what happens. Anyone out process raw potatoes?