Skip to main content
Main

Beef Hashed, a LA Francaise

A beef hash with butter, flour, onion, parsley, spices, water, and a sauce thickened with egg yolks and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Beef Hashed, a LA Francaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. In a stew-pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Add the chopped onion and minced parsley; cook until browned.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg, then add the water.

Finish the hash

  1. Add the beef slices and heat gradually until near boiling.

  2. Thicken the sauce with the egg yolks mixed with lemon juice.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Walnut + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the hash, providing protein and substance.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat, giving it a smooth, rich texture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and water base into a sauce when cooked briefly.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and depth as it browns in the butter.
Butter
Carries the onion and parsley and adds richness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken with the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, and if the sauce gets too hot they can curdle and turn grainy. Heat gradually and keep the sauce below a boil when adding the yolk and lemon mixture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, butter, flour, parsley, pepper, nutmeg, beef):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, butter, flour, parsley, pepper, nutmeg, beef. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes