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Mother’s Hash

A hash of cold meat, boiled potatoes, onion, flour, butter, and water, baked until crusty.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion 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 ↓

Mother’s Hash

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Remove all surplus fat and gristle from the meat and chop it finely.

  2. Combine one-third of the meat with two-thirds of the chopped cold boiled potatoes and the chopped onion.

Bake

  1. Place the mixture in a dripping pan, season with salt and pepper, and dredge with a little flour.

  2. Pour enough water into the pan to come up level with the hash, then place it in a 400°F (200°C) oven without stirring.

  3. When the flour is light brown and forms a crust, take it out and stir in a lump of butter.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with tomato ketchup.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

Cold meat
Provides the main savoury flavour and substance of the hash.
Chopped cold boiled potatoes
Adds bulk and starch that helps the hash hold together and brown.
Flour
Dredged on top, it browns and forms a crust in the oven.
Butter
Stirred in at the end, it adds richness and flavour.

The step that matters

Leaving the hash unstirred in the oven. Stirring breaks up the forming crust, so the flour cannot brown and the hash stays soft instead of developing a crisp surface.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Leekfits about as well

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