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Southern Hash

A savory hash of onions, peppers, potatoes, meat, and butter simmered in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Southern Hash

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion, green peppers, and potatoes to the pan.

  3. Pour in enough stock to cover the vegetables and cook until the potatoes are tender, stirring often to prevent sticking.

  4. Once the potatoes are done, add the chopped meat and season well.

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. Tomato + potatotop 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. Pepper + potatotop 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

Potatoes
Provide starch and bulk, softening as they cook to give the hash its body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the vegetables brown lightly in the pan.
Meat
Supplies the main protein and savory flavor of the hash.
Green peppers
Add fresh, slightly bitter vegetable flavor and some texture.

The step that matters

Stirring while the potatoes cook in stock. Stock left to evaporate or potatoes left unstirred can scorch and stick to the pan. Stirring often keeps the starch from burning while the potatoes soften fully.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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