Cheap Date Hash Could Become Addictive

I am a hash hound. No, I don’t mean narcotics, although I do find it addicting. I’m talking about a classic American breakfast dish, a delicacy found at greasy spoons and roadhouses. Let sophisticates have their omelets and eggs Benedict. I raise my fork for hash.

Our word “hash” comes from the French term “hacher,” to chop (which is also the root of “hatchet”). It’s certainly a venerable dish. The English diarist, Samuel Pepys, waxed grandiloquent about a rabbit hash he savored in 1662. During World War I, American GIs consumed a steady diet of corned beef hash, which they christened “corned Willie.”

Hash originated as a way to use up leftovers. By the 1860s, a cheap restaurant was called a “hash house” or “hashery.” This humble fare has given us numerous expressions, such as “to settle your hash” and “hash things over.” In military slang, a “hash mark” is a stripe accorded for each period of enlistment.

Hash is the great common denominator; it turns up in swank hotel dining rooms and at homey luncheonettes, prized by rich and poor alike. In my pursuit for the perfect hash, I have sampled turkey hash, venison hash, even clam hash.

The most common version of hash contains corned beef and potatoes, but it can be prepared with an almost endless variety of ingredients. The French dote on hachis parmentier, chopped lamb and potatoes baked with a fragrant topping of garlic, parsley and butter. In seafaring communities, like Nantucket, it was common to find fish hash. Salt cod hash was popular enough in 19th century New England to be included in Fanny Farmer’s “Boston Cooking School Cook Book.”

Opinions vary on the proper flavoring for hash. Rural New Englanders added cooked beets to the mixture to make that Yankee classic, red flannel hash. Fannie Farmer flavored her salt cod hash with a rather un-Yankee combination of tomatoes and garlic.

Hash is a flexible food, compelling at breakfast, comforting at lunch and unexpectedly satisfying for supper. The basic formula - onions, potatoes and meat - can be applied to almost any leftover. Good hash is like an impressionist painting: a marriage of individual flavors into a bright, harmonious whole.

The following recipe can be made with any type of meat, including leftover steak or roast beef.

Cheap Date Hash

Here’s a recipe from my bachelor days, made with the steak and potatoes that a date with a small appetite would leave over and that I’d turn into breakfast the next morning.

2 tablespoons butter

1 medium onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 red or green bell pepper, cored, seeded and diced

2 stalks celery, finely chopped

2 cups cooked roast beef, steak or other meat, cut into 1/2-inch dice

2 cups peeled cooked potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch dice

1 cup chicken or beef stock or water

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce, or to taste

1 to 2 teaspoons Tabasco sauce, or to taste

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Salt, freshly ground black pepper

2 to 4 poached or fried eggs, optional

Heat butter in large nonstick skillet. Add onions, garlic, bell pepper and celery and cook over medium heat until lightly browned, about 5 minutes.

Add roast beef, potatoes, stock, Worcestershire and Tabasco sauces and 2 tablespoons parsley. Increase heat to high and cook hash, stirring occasionally, until most of liquid has evaporated and meat is very tender, 10 to 15 minutes.

Just before serving, correct seasoning, adding salt, pepper and Tabasco or Worcestershire sauces to taste. Add remaining 2 tablespoons parsley. Serve hash with poached eggs on top.

Yield: 2 servings.

Nutrition information per serving: 799 calories, 56 grams fat (63 percent fat calories), 50 grams protein, 22 grams carbohydrate, 377 milligrams cholesterol, 1,156 milligrams sodium.