Skip to main content
Main

Hash, with Potatoes

A hash made with cold beef, potatoes, butter, and hot water, seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Hash, with Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove bones from the cold beef and chop it finely.

  2. Boil potatoes with skins on, then cool and chop them coarsely.

Cook

  1. In a skillet, combine the chopped beef and potatoes with melted butter and a little hot water.

  2. Season to taste and stir until cooked through.

  3. For a crispy texture, let it cook longer to form a crust on the bottom, then serve on a flat 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. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cold beef
Forms the savoury body of the hash and provides most of its flavour.
Potatoes
Bulk and starch that bind the hash and crisp into a crust when left to brown.
Butter or clarified drippings
Adds fat for richness and helps the bottom brown in the skillet.

The step that matters

Letting the bottom form a crust. Pressing the hash and leaving it undisturbed in the skillet lets the surface brown through the Maillard reaction, which creates the crisp texture. Stirring too often or too early keeps it soft and steamed.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Chivefits less well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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.

More potato hash recipes

Fried 5 See all 9 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes