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Oatmeal Hash

A hearty hash of oats, potatoes, onions, and tomatoes simmered in water with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Oatmeal Hash

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the water in a large pot.

  2. Add the rolled oats, potatoes, onions, salt, and pepper. Cook for 30 minutes.

  3. In a separate pan, brown the cornstarch in the fat. Add the browned cornstarch to the pot and cook until thick.

  4. Stir in the tomatoes for added flavor, if desired.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rolled oats
Thicken the liquid and form the body of the hash as they cook soft.
Potatoes
Add starch and bulk, softening as they cook to give the hash body.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cooking liquid into a thick mixture when heated.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma as they cook down.

The step that matters

Adding the browned cornstarch. Cornstarch thickens only when it is heated in liquid and stirred. Adding it to the pot and cooking until thick lets the starch swell fully, while lumps form if it is added without being mixed into the fat first.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oats, onion, potato, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oats, onion, potato, 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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