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Beef to Hash

A broth with thin beef slices, onions, herbs, and thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 to Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut thin slices of the underdone beef, discarding gristly parts and burnt outside.

Make the broth

  1. In a pot, combine the bones, water, pepper, salt, onions, allspice, sweet herbs, and parsley.

  2. Boil until the water reduces by half.

  3. Gradually mix in flour to thicken the broth.

  4. Once thickened, skim off the fat and let it settle.

  5. Strain the broth into another pot and return to heat.

  6. Add your choice of catsup, pickle, or flavoring ingredient.

Finish and serve

  1. Warm the beef slices in the broth without boiling.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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

Flour
Thickens the broth as it is stirred in, giving it body to coat the beef.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic flavor to the broth as they simmer.
Beef
Provides the main meat; gentle warming keeps the slices tender rather than tough.

The step that matters

Warm the beef without boiling. Boiling meat toughens its proteins and makes them dry and stringy. Keeping the broth just below a boil lets the slices warm through while staying tender.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, allspice, parsley, flour. 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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