Simmer for about 5 minutes until custardy-thick and unctuous. A few small capers, or even a sprinkling of snipped chives stirred in at the last minute would not be frowned upon. Please yourselves.Hash, serves 4A hash is the perfect brunch dish and found all over America – in the home, coffee shops, delis and diners. I cannot think of anything nicer for New Year’s Day and would suggest it as a late breakfast dish, together with a jug of spicy Bloody Mary; the perfect antidote to the inevitable hangover.28g/loz butter110g/4oz diced bacon225g/8oz onions, peeled and chopped450g/llb cooked meat (beef, lamb, pork or turkey)450g/lIb potatoes, peeled, cut into cubes and simmered until tender2 tbsp chopped parsley (mint is a good addition if you are using lamb; sage if pork)a little freshly grated nutmega few shakes of TabascoWorcester saucesalt4 eggsMelt the butter in a large, preferably non-stick, frying pan Fry the bacon until crisp and then add the onions Cook for a few minutes until soft Now tip in the meat and cooked potatoes. Turn the heat down a little and further cook for about 20 minutes. In a large frying pan, melt the oil or dripping and butter until foaming. Put in the rissoles and fry gently for 7-10 minutes on each side, until well crusted and golden brown.
Form into 12 small cakes, roll in the flour, then the beaten egg and finally the fresh breadcrumbs. Rissoles can be coated simply in flour, but the breadcrumbs give a crustier outside. One of the best and most well-known hashes is made with leftover corned beef or ham. But there is nothing wrong with turkey, pork, beef or even lamb hash.
I have made fish hashes, too – smoked haddock is particularly fine.Rissoles with mustard sauce, serves 6450g/1lb cooked meat (ham, pork or turkey)450g/llb cooked potatoes, crushed into lumps1 small bunch parsley, leaves only, chopped1 large onion, peeled, finely chopped, and briefly fried in butter until golden40g/l12oz fresh breadcrumbs1 eggfreshly grated nutmegsalt and pepperflour1 beaten eggbreadcrumbs for coating2 tbsp oil or dripping28g/loz butterFlake or chop the cooked meat and mix with all the other ingredients, except the flour, beaten egg and extra breadcrumbs, in (preferably) the bowl of an electric mixer until well blended, but not a paste. At Christmas, however, the welter of bits and pieces that build up from three days of excess can lead to cynical cries of “Oh surely not curried turkey again?”My leftover favourites are usually based on fry-ups – and everybody loves a fry-up, don’t they? A hash is really an un-minced rissole that has been let loose in the pan rather than tethered with egg and breadcrumbs – the egg often appears perched on top and can be either fried or poached. That last may be a so-called healthier meal, but come on, will it actually taste good?Now I understand that roasting large joints of meat is not done as regularly as it used to be, partly due to cost and also because the traditional family weekend seems to have waned. They were fabulously good and a perfect foil for the rissoles.
You might think this sounds like a horribly unhealthy feast. Well, I would ask you to ponder the dubious merits of a greasy, frozen hamburger with oven chips; the strange mess of sweetcorn, ham and pineapple that might top a deep-pan pizza; or the curious combination of, say, broccoli and tuna that might end up in a “pasta-bake”. Ketchup was the essential provider of piquancy and lubrication And there would always be potato fritters.
These were slices of raw potato, dusted in flour, dipped in batter and submerged into the chip pan in batches of three or four. A cold joint would be cut and scraped from the bone, forced through the mincer (a hand one is my earliest recollection), together with an onion or two and then some bread. This cleaned out the last remnants of meat from inside the mixer, and added bulk and body to the mix A beaten egg was then mixed in and that was that. There might have been the odd leftover roast potato which also went through the mincer and perhaps parsley, too, but those were mere vagaries.
What I certainly do remember, is that these rissoles were very, very good indeed. I can see them now, briefly rolled in flour and fried in good dripping, their surface golden and crisp from the spitting fat. With the relentless onslaught of the ready-made meal, not to mention pizza, hamburgers and other takeaways, plus the ubiquitous “I’ll just rustle up some pasta and a salad” syndrome, the idea of turning a leftover roast or other cooked meat into something interesting is rare these days
A fond memory is the rissole We would always have them on a Monday evening. It’s roomy, versatile, beautifully made and detailed, and remains one of Britain’s lowest depreciating cars.Worst buy: Nissan Serena MPV (pounds 13,895-pounds 16,240)Looks like a van, drives like a van.
