First post! I can solve some of this mystery, as I am a master of South Carolina BBQ hash. Hash is a boiled meat dish usually made from beef and/or pork. When made correctly, it’s great. When made wrong, it’s nasty and guaranteed to give you indigestion. If hash is dark dark brown or smells gamey/like blood, it’s made wrong.
Ingredients
3 lbs of meat (beef, pork, deer, rabbit, etc) cut into cubes - You can use more meat if your soup pot can hold it. Use whatever cut of meat you like, but cheaper stew-meat works best. Don’t waste pork loin and filet mignon on this one!
2 sticks unsalted butter
3-4 yellow onions (no Vidalias, the taste needs to be strong rather than sweet)
2-4 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste
hot sauce (optional)
pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)
large strainer
the biggest soup pot you can find
lots of water
lots of time
This must be a very regional dish, because I’ve never found it outside my native upstate South Carolina.
Start off by adding your meat to the soup pot and filling with water until the meat is covered by at least a few inches. Bring the water to a hard, rolling boil and let boil for approximately 5 minutes. As it boils, you will see brown foamy scum floating on top of the water. This is the blood and indigestible proteins coming out of the meat. Drain the meat into your strainer and rinse. Return to the pot and fill again. Repeat the boiling step. You want to repeat the drain-fill-boil-drain steps until the water stays clean when it comes to a boil (Usually you’ll have to drain 3 or 4 times, depending on the amount of meat you use and the size of your pot. I’ve never had to drain more than 5 times, personally.). By doing this, you’ll have a cleaner tasting hash and save yourself lots of heartburn! You can tell any hash made without this cleaning by its dark brown color and gamey smell and taste.
Now that your meat is boiling clean, add a bay leaf or two and two roughly chopped onions. Reduce the heat to a medium-low simmer and kick back. This is the worst part of making hash: it’s a slow process and there’s no way around it - pressure cookers won’t do this with the same results. From this point, you’ll probably want the proto-hash to boil around 8 hours, but it’s just guess-work. The goal is to boil the mixture until the meat breaks down. I like to start the boil-rinse-repeat late in the PM, say 10 o’clock, then get in around an hour or two boiling before I got to sleep. If you’re going to do this, turn the heat down as low as it will go and make sure there’s plenty of water in your pot. Cover with a lid and forget about it.
When I wake the next morning, it’s time for some hard boiling. Turn the heat back up and keep a watch on the hash. Stir occasionally (this stuff WILL stick) and keep and eye out for the water level. Add water as needed to keep the meat covered. At this point you can add the rest of your roughly chopped onions, bay leaves, and butter.
Once the meat has totally fallen apart, you are almost done. Return the heat to high and reduce the liquid in the pot. The end result should not be dry, but it’s not soupy, either. There shouldn’t be much (if any) liquid over the top of the hash, but there should be plenty enough to keep it moist. You can add the optional hot sauce and red pepper flakes as you are reducing. Once you have the right consistency, salt and pepper to taste. Remove the used-up bay leaves, turn off the heat, and get ready to eat.
Hash is usually eaten as a sandwich, on a hamburger-type bun. Serve the hash with a slotted spoon, so you can remove enough liquid to keep the bun from turning to mush. Cole slaw is optional, as is additional hot sauce. You can top with whatever condiment you like, but I prefer a little sweet bbq sauce.
