San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Who doesn’t love dinerstyle hash? This recipe takes it from breakfast to the dinner plate.
With a little effort, this morning staple is transformed into an elegant, homey dinner
I miss diners. No matter where you are, Maine or Maryland or the Bay Area, a diner is pretty much the same. The coffee is usually not of great quality but is strong, scalding and plentiful; the omelets ooze orange cheese and the hash browns are slicked with griddle grease. At diners, I always order the same thing: corned beef hash, with poached eggs and rye toast. I can’t wait to sit at a counter again; I can’t wait until someone else makes me hash just how I like it, crispy on the outside.
But, you know, it’s going to be a little while yet. We have to continue to take matters into our own hands.
Hash, I believe, is an anytimeofyear recipe, but it makes sense to try it now, when you might soon have leftover corned beef from a St. Patrick’s Day feast. The simplest versions of hash — the ones that hew closest to the origins of the dish, as a way to use leftovers from a boiled supper — are just onions, cubes of cooked potato and bits of corned beef, fried together until browned.
I like that version. But with a bit of care you can make a hash that transcends its greasyspoon connotations and that is, dare I say, even elegant. Instead of cubing potatoes, I shred them, maximizing the surface area so I can get them more crispy, not unlike a potato pancake. It’s not traditional, but I like to add some grated sweet potato, too, since I find its honeyed sweetness a nice contrast to the salty meat. In a nod to my New England roots, where hash is a popular offering at church suppers, I also add cubed, cooked beets, which transforms it from ordinary corned beef hash to something called red flannel hash, owing to its color.
If you order hash at a diner, you’ll be lucky if it comes with a sprig of curly parsley and some ketchup alongside. But at home, I like to shower my hash with lots of dill, then serve it with some creme fraiche into which I’ve stirred some prepared horseradish. Eggs are optional, I suppose, except not really — something alchemical happens when the yolk of a poached egg melts into the hash, and who wants to miss out on that? If you’d like, though, you can also bake the eggs directly in the pan with the hash for a very satisfying onepan supper.
Breakfast for breakfast is good, but honestly, this hash might be too much work for the morning, when pulling off a bowl of cereal can sometimes feel like a triumph. Instead, make like an allday diner and serve it for dinner. One benefit of having it at home? You can skip the coffee and drink a glass of wine alongside.