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To Make a Good Hash

A savory broth made by simmering bones, vegetables, and seasonings, then skimming fat and seasoning to taste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Make a Good Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the bones, skin, and gristle in water for 1-2 hours with the onion, peppercorns, and vegetables.

  2. Strain the mixture into a basin and let it cool to allow the fat to settle.

  3. Skim the fat off the top and add sauces, vinegar, red currant jelly, salt, and pepper to taste.

Finish the gravy

  1. Adjust the flavor with additional sauces or optional ingredients as desired.

  2. Thicken and brown the gravy to your preference, ensuring it is neither too thick nor too thin.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Bones, skin, and gristle
Release gelatin and body into the water, giving the broth richness and mouthfeel.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a gloss that balances the savoury, meaty flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and cuts the richness of the broth.
Onion
Contributes savoury, aromatic sweetness to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat after cooling. Fat rises and solidifies as the broth cools. Removing it before adding sauces keeps the gravy clean-tasting and prevents a greasy mouthfeel.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, onion, celery, carrot, turnip, vinegar, ketchup):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, onion, celery, carrot, turnip, vinegar, ketchup. 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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