Skip to main content
Main

Hash

A savory beef hash simmered in a tomato-based gravy with herbs, onions, and spices, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,399 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into delicate slices, discarding tough parts and skin.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the gravy from the previous day with water, catsup, herbs, onion, salt, and cayenne.

  2. Stew for 15 minutes.

  3. Take out 1 cup of the liquid and mix it with flour until smooth.

  4. Stir the flour mixture back into the saucepan and cook for 10 minutes.

  5. Strain the mixture, return it to the pan, and add the beef slices.

  6. Heat gently without boiling.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, stir in the tarragon vinegar and arrange toasted bread snippets around the dish.

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 + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Beef
Provides the main meat and body of the hash, gently warmed through in the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce when cooked, giving the hash body.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savory sauce just before serving.
Catsup
Adds sweetness and tomato acidity that deepens the color and flavor of the sauce.
Onion
Contributes savory aroma and sweetness as it cooks into the sauce.

The step that matters

Heat gently without boiling. Boiling toughens the thin beef slices and can break up the flour-thickened sauce, so keep it at a gentle heat once the beef is added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, flour, tarragon, vinegar, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, flour, tarragon, vinegar, bread. 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.

More beef hash recipes

Corned 114Cold 44with Spaghetti 5Salt 3 See all 112 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes