eG Cook-Off 58: Hash

[Dave the Cook]

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?

I'm not clear on the result you're trying to achieve. Do you want to recreate tots ("gems" to our friends down under) as a component of the hash, or are you after something much smaller, like a tot "crumb" -- maybe 1/16" inch?

[Chris Hennes]

OK, I started by dicing the potato roughly:

Then into the food processor until it was a hash:

And into a bag with some butter and salt:

I'm going to cook them at 85°C for 45 minutes or so, then chill.

[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?

I'm not clear on the result you're trying to achieve. Do you want to recreate tots ("gems" to our friends down under) as a component of the hash, or are you after something much smaller, like a tot "crumb" -- maybe 1/16" inch?

The latter: maybe not quite that fine, but something like it. I think I managed to achieve more or less what I was looking for. Obviously there is some variability to the chunk size, but I think that's probably desirable.

[Dave the Cook]

Got it. Your method makes sense, since tots were originally devised by Ore-Ida as a way to use up shards left over from making fries, weren't they? I'm wondering if you're not going to have to add another step for authentic tot crunch -- some starch, or pre-frying or something. Otherwise, you've just got irregular potato shapes. Or maybe that's what you want.

[Chris Hennes]

I'm not going for Tater Tots themselves, I was just trying to describe what I wanted the potato hash texture to be like. But now that you mention it... hmmm

[Dave the Cook]

Our hash was made from pork shoulder and two potato varieties, Yukon Gold and mature reds. We were shooting for a crispy crust, especially on the potato. Several folks have suggested getting the potatoes 3/4 of the way done before adding onions (and peppers, which we didn't use) to help avoid softening the potato surface, but we went a step further, doing the onions and meat separately, then adding them at the last minute. Here, more or less, is the recipe:

2 C roast pork, finely diced (1/4")

2 C waxy potatoes, finely diced

1 C chopped onion

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 C rich stock (we used beef, but it probably doesn't matter)

1/4 C heavy cream

2 t pork fat

1 T duck fat

(Yeah, the fats are odd, but we had the pork fat leftover from the roast, and duck fat was close at hand -- plus poultry fat + potatoes = some kind of magic.)

Heat oven to 450°F.

Cook the onions in the pork fat until they separate and pick up a little color. Add the pork and stock and heat through. Add cream and reduce slightly. Adjust seasoning.

Brown the potatoes in duck fat with a little salt until crispy. We used a cast-iron skillet, because we knew we were going to put it in the oven, but any oven-safe saute or fry pan will do.

Pour the meat-onion mixture over the potatoes, being careful to disturb the potatoes as little as possible.

Put the pan in the oven for about ten minutes, until top is browned and liquid has thickened.

Plate and top with poached egg, if desired.

Here's the hash right out of the oven:

And here it is plated, with an egg and scallion garnish:

This was an excellent example of a "crispy-with-separate-bits" hash. The potatoes retained their crunch, the meat picked up a little crust, and the brief stay in the oven brought the liquid down to a glaze, leaving enough moisture (along with the egg as sauce) to prevent dryness in the mouth.

[David Ross]

Nice Hash Dave. What did you think about the waxy potatoes? I'm a Russet guy myself and prefer their meatier taste. Did you just use the potatoes you had in the larder?

[David Ross]

OK, I started by dicing the potato roughly:

Then into the food processor until it was a hash:

And into a bag with some butter and salt:

I'm going to cook them at 85°C for 45 minutes or so, then chill.

Looks like a solid technique for your potatoes. You've got me hungry for some hash.

[Chris Hennes]

I made the hash tonight for dinner, using the sous vide potatoes I'd cooked yesterday, and a leftover chunk of sous vide brisket from this past weekend. Here is the texture of the beef I decided to go with (I pulled it like pork, and then cut down the strands to bite-sized pieces)

I started assembly by frying up some onions:

When they started to brown I deglazed the pan with chicken stock:

Then added cream and some leftover lentils:

I then gently tossed it all together to avoid crushing the potatoes (which were cooked to a firm consistency):

Then I fried it all up together:

I didn't feel like poaching an egg, so I just fried mine:

Overall I thought it was very successful, definitely among the best hashes I've had. The beef had enough bite to it that it was texturally interesting without being tough, and the potatoes were just firm enough to retain their identity. The lentils were pretty subtle, they were a fine addition since I had them on hand, but I wouldn't go out of my way to add them again.

[David Ross]

That's a beautiful hash Chris-nice dice/hash on the ingredients, not too chunky, and you can't hardly tell that there was much liquid in the hash, yet just enough to bind it together. Who would think to put lentils in a hash? Now I do.

[Chris Hennes]

Do you all think potatoes are a required element, or could you add some other starchy item?

[Dave the Cook]

Nice Hash Dave. What did you think about the waxy potatoes? I'm a Russet guy myself and prefer their meatier taste. Did you just use the potatoes you had in the larder?

I don't find that there's big difference in taste among potatoes (for example, I don't know what you mean by "meaty"), particularly when there's lots of other stuff going on like there is in hash. The significant difference for me was that I was starting the potatoes from scratch, and I didn't want to parboil -- in fact, in the size I used, parboiling seemed superfluous. In this case -- going straight to the pan -- the waxy type seemed the better bet.

[Dave the Cook]

Do you all think potatoes are a required element, or could you add some other starchy item?

I think it's a challenge if you're going for "crispy" -- potatoes are good at "crispy outside/fluffy inside." But I could see other starches working under the right circumstances. Bean, rice and grits cakes can all be crispy.

[Chris Hennes]

Hmm. That hash I made yesterday might have had some nominally crispy bits, but I wasn't really shooting for "crispy". Was I supposed to?

[Dave the Cook]

If you were making it for me, yes. I think a successful hash hath crispiness to a more than nominal degree.

[David Ross]

Hmm. That hash I made yesterday might have had some nominally crispy bits, but I wasn't really shooting for "crispy". Was I supposed to?

In my mind, a traditional diner-style hash would use potatoes as the starch and be very crispy on the outer layer, soft within. But I also think adapted to today's tastes and styles, you could easily replace the hash another starch, yet still keep the crispy texture to define it as hash.

[Mjx]

Well, here's mine:

Objectively, I'd have to say the picture is not that appetizing (you should see the raw image), but the dish was actually quite tasty. We don't tend to have much in the way of leftovers, so this was a combination of a single portion of a supposedly Spanish-inspired beef stew from the January/February issue of Cook's Illustrated, combined with a half-portion of a home fry recipe from the same issue.

My idea was to do something along the lines of biksemad (which Mette mentioned, upthread), but I ran out of steam when the time came to turn the beef chunks into small dice, and I just broke/shredded them up, instead. The potatoes were crisp and caramelized on the outside, fluffy within, and the meat was moist and tender. Apparently, ketchup and HP Sauce are standard with biksemad, so my boyfriend set up small ponds of each at the edge of his plate. We had rucola with this, too.

But, does this count as hash, or did the inclusion of home fries kind of blow this out of the water?

[Chris Hennes]

Looks like hash to me.

[mgaretz]

I made hash last night too. Onion, red potatoes and corned beef. I par-bolied the potatoes and cut them into just slightly smaller pieces than MJX's. Seasoned with fresh garlic and a small amount of salt and pepper. I sautéed the onions in clarified butter added in the potatoes until they started to brown then the beef, spices and 1/2 cup of water. Cooked on fairly high heat until the water was gone and the hash was getting very crispy. Then turned for another few minutes.

It was tasty, but it didn't stick together like I thought it would. Not enough starch from the potatoes?

[heidih]

I wonder if the diner nature of this food where a flat top is generally used is an integral part of what we might call the "standard". The ingredients get tossed loosely to cook on the flat top, then moved tossed and turned as all the bits get browned, and then get pushed together into a flat cake, moved around some more for cohesion and browning on the top and bottom and then served. That is based on my limited experience of course.

[kayb]

As mentioned previously, sweet potato and pulled pork hash.

I picked up a pound of pulled pork from one of the several local barbecue emporiums (emporia?), got home, and discovered I had but one lonely sweet potato. I also had some acorn squash, so the lighter-colored chunks in the hash are that. They tasted much like a potato. Diced and fried the sweet potato and squash until brown a bit on the outside and soft within, added the chopped-up pulled pork to heat and get some crispy bits, then drizzled with No. 5 sauce that came with the pork. You've got to love a 'cue joint that has five different sauces. This one is spicy with a touch of sweet.

It was excellent.

[ChrisTaylor]

I made hash with some leftover spiced, coffee-crusted barbecue chuck. Added onions, birds eye chilli and potatoes.

Crisped up the top in the oven.

[David Ross]

I made hash last night too. Onion, red potatoes and corned beef. I par-bolied the potatoes and cut them into just slightly smaller pieces than MJX's. Seasoned with fresh garlic and a small amount of salt and pepper. I sautéed the onions in clarified butter added in the potatoes until they started to brown then the beef, spices and 1/2 cup of water. Cooked on fairly high heat until the water was gone and the hash was getting very crispy. Then turned for another few minutes.

It was tasty, but it didn't stick together like I thought it would. Not enough starch from the potatoes?

I'm thinking the reason it didn't cling together is that you used water for the liquid element rather than cream or a thick gravy that would have given your hash more body.

[ChrisTaylor]

I just used stock. Possibly the quantity has something to do with it.

[Kim Shook]

My favorite hash is roast beef hash, but one of the best I’ve ever made, flavor-wise is with Michael Ruhlman’s pastrami short ribs. Just onions, potatoes and the ribs chopped and fried in a pan:

The flavor is great, but the texture is off. It just isn’t ‘hashy’ enough. The pieces are too large and separate. To me, hash isn’t hash unless it clings together. Like Chris A, to my tastes it needs to be an amalgamation of meat and potatoes. If you can pull out each individual ingredient and lay them down in a line, it’s just chopped things that were cooked together. I really liked the looks of David’s hash in post #32. I think that I need to use his Better Homes and Gardens recipe. Unfortunately, I don’t have the 1976 edition - I’ve got a 1951 and a 1982 (the year we got married!). David, you gave great directions in that post, but could you give me a hint about proportions – meat to potato to evaporated milk?

And here’s a question that occurred to me: if you make fish hash and form it into patties and cook it crisp on either side, what’s the difference between that hash and fish cakes? Because I sometimes use mashed potatoes, but other times I use pretty chunky ‘smashed’ potatoes to make fish cakes.