Sunday’s Roast Beef Reappears as Beef & Potato Hash

Did your Mom spend Sunday cooking a roast? It was a favorite for family gatherings when I was growing up. Probably because it’s so full-proof. Most roast cuts are really easy to make and the leftovers are the huge bonus!

One of the favorite “leftover recipes” at our house is Roast Beef Hash. This started out as a Corned Beef Hash recipe, which I grew up on in Maryland and still love; but my family isn’t as enamored as I am with corned beef, so we modified the recipe and it’s wonderful for any meal.

This recipe will take you less than 30 minutes to prep, cook and serve and it’s great for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I have used both shoulder and chuck roasts for this, applying a dry rub of Italian spices, salt, pepper and a little sweet paprika a couple of hours before cooking and a handful of dehydrated sweet onions as it’s cooking. But the dry rub is not necessary to get a good result from either of these cuts of meat.  The key to the slow cook is searing the meat in some olive oil before you put it into the oven to cook. You could use a slow cooker as well, on low. It cooked for about 3 hours, covered in a dutch oven, on  250F after I browned each side in olive oil. Basically I cooked it until I thought it was tender enough to serve. The salt in the dry rub helps the internal marbled fat render properly as the roast cooks. If you are not using a very heavy dutch oven or slow cooker, you may need to play around with the temperature. the cast iron dutch ovens created more heat inside then the oven temperature is reading. So a setting of 325F might be more appropriate for a stainless roasting pan that is not going to retain the heat as well as the cast iron.  This is a recipe for 2-3 people

Roast Beef & Potato Hash

Ingredients

• Olive oil
• 2 cups cubed small Yukon/similar potato, leave skin on (raw)
• 3/4 – 1 lb of cubed cooked roast beef, fat removed
• 1/2-1 cup chopped sweet onion (or onions from roast)
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
• 1/3- 1/2  cup beef broth
• 1/2 cup milk, warmed (can be 2%, whole or half/half)
• 2 tablespoons fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped
• Salt & Pepper to season

Directions

• Put enough olive oil in the bottom of a large sauce pan or heavy bottom cast iron pan to coat sufficiently. Heat to medium high and then add the cubed potatoes (about 1/2″ cubes or smaller)  into the pan along with about a teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper. Continue to cook on medium high, covered, without burning. Turn the heat down if your pan seems to get too hot and starts smoking. This is going to take you about 5 minutes and you don’t really need to stir because you are trying to develop a browned surface one side of the potatoes before you stir them. If you onions are raw then add these in with the potatoes and they will add some additional liquid as they cook and brown.
• Stir the potatoes and continue to cook about another 5 minutes, covered. Check the potatoes at 5 minutes and when they are cooked almost all the way, add the cooked beef cubes and the cooked or dehydrated onions if you have them for more flavor. Then add the beef broth and Worcestershire Sauce and stir the mixture well trying to coat the potatoes well. Cover and cook for a couple of minutes to blend everything.
• Add the warmed milk. Warming the milk helps ensure it won’t curdle when you put it into the hot beef and potatoes. Stir the dish and then add the parsley on the top.
• Cover the dish and let the potatoes and beef absorb the milk. This should take about another couple of minutes. Adjust the seasonings and serve.

Notes

If you want an additional shortcut, use some pre-roasted potatoes. I simply chop a lot of potatoes and cover them with olive oil, Italian spices, rosemary,thyme, salt and pepper and roast them with aluminum foil on the bottom and the top at 425F for about 30  minutes in a preheated oven on a preheated heavy cast iron or stainless pan. Preheating the pan helps to sear the potatoes the minute they hit the pan. Be careful about spattering oil!  When you remove them from the oven, leave the cover on for about 5-10 minutes and the potatoes will release from the bottom foil piece easily with a silicon spatula.