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Corned-Beef Hash

A baked or stovetop dish of chopped corned beef and mashed potatoes, browned with butter and seasoned with onion, salt, pepper, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Corned-Beef Hash

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a pan, mix the chopped corned beef with the mashed potatoes.

  3. Smooth the mixture over in the pan and dot with butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the oven until browned, about 20-25 minutes.

  2. Serve hot, sprinkled with parsley.

Stovetop version

  1. For the stovetop version, simmer minced corned beef, potatoes, onion, salt, and pepper in broth until thickened.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corned beef
Provides the main savory meat flavor and the bulk of the hash.
Mashed potatoes
Binds the meat together and gives the hash a soft, starchy body.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown in the oven.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma when cooked into the mixture.
Broth
Adds moisture and savory depth to the stovetop version.

The step that matters

Smooth the mixture over in the pan and dot with butter. Spreading the hash to an even layer lets it heat through evenly, and the butter helps the surface brown rather than dry out in the oven.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, butter, onion, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, butter, onion, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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