Why it works: Shallot and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 376 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
To Hash Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
In a tossing pan, combine the gravy, lemon pickle, walnut catsup, browning, and sliced shallot.
Heat the mixture over the fire until it boils.
Finish and serve
Add the beef and shake the pan until the beef is heated through.
Do not thicken the gravy.
Add the sliced pickled cucumber and garnish with horseradish or pickled onions before serving.
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.
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Shallot + horseradishtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together376 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together640 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Shallot + cucumbertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together264 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,523 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Walnut + shallottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together440 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 the meaty base of the dish.
- Gravy from the beef
- Supplies moisture and savory flavor that coats the meat and binds the dish.
- Shallot
- Adds a mild, sharp onion aroma that deepens the flavor of the sauce.
- Walnut catsup
- Contributes a dark, tangy, savory depth to the gravy.
- Pickled cucumber
- Adds acidity and crisp texture that cut through the rich beef.
The step that matters
Heat the mixture until it boils, then add the beef and only heat it through. Beef cooked further in boiling liquid becomes tough and dry, so the meat should just be warmed through in the hot gravy rather than simmered for long.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, walnut, shallot, cucumber, horseradish):
- Avocadofits better
- Limefits better
- Lemonthe original
- Cherryfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, walnut, shallot, cucumber, horseradish. 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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