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Dry Hash

Dry Hash is a fried mixture of finely chopped meat, mashed potatoes, and onions seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Dry Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the soup meat or cold steak very fine, removing all fat and gristle.

  2. Boil and mash the potatoes.

  3. Mix the meat and mashed potatoes together.

  4. Chop the onion finely and fry it in butter, then mix it with the meat and potatoes.

Shape and fry

  1. Season the mixture with coarse sea salt and pepper, then form it into small cakes.

  2. Fry the cakes in hot lard until very brown.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Soup meat or cold steak
Provides the main savoury body and meaty flavour of the hash.
Potatoes
Bind the chopped meat together and give the cakes a soft, starchy interior.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma when softened in butter.
Hot lard
Conducts heat to brown the outside of the cakes and adds richness.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes in hot lard until very brown. Frying in hot fat browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, creating flavour and a crisp crust. Too little heat leaves the cakes pale, greasy and soft.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

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