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Vegetable Hash

A fried dish of leftover boiled vegetables seasoned with pepper and butter, simmered with hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Vegetable Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the leftover vegetables coarsely.

  2. Sprinkle with pepper and place in a saucepan or frying pan.

Cook

  1. Add the butter and let it melt, coating the bottom and sides of the pan.

  2. Add the chopped vegetables and pour in hot water.

  3. Cover quickly to trap steam and heat thoroughly.

  4. Remove the cover and stir occasionally until well cooked.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + parsniptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together222 recipes

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

  3. Parsnip + potatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together353 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Cabbage + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together275 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

Remains of boiled vegetables
Form the bulk of the hash and provide its main texture and body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, coating the pan and vegetables to help prevent sticking.
Hot water
Creates steam under the cover that heats the vegetables through quickly.

The step that matters

Cover quickly to trap steam and heat thoroughly. Trapped steam heats the cold, cut vegetables evenly from all sides. Leaving the pan uncovered too long lets moisture escape, so the vegetables heat unevenly and take longer to become hot through.

Swap the parsnip

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, potato, pepper, butter. 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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