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Delmonico's Corned Beef Hash

A hash of sliced cold corned beef and boiled potatoes, cooked with butter and optional beet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Delmonico's Corned Beef Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cold corned beef finely, but not too fine.

  2. Chop about one-third as much cold boiled potatoes, ensuring they are not too fine.

  3. Combine the beef and potatoes, keeping the mixture moist but not dry or watery.

  4. If desired, chop a boiled beet and mix it in, reducing the amount of potato.

Cook and serve

  1. Cover and heat for a few minutes until hot.

  2. If no gravy is used, stir in a little butter.

  3. Serve on a hot 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 corned beef
Provides the main meat body and savoury flavour of the hash.
Cold boiled potatoes
Adds starchy bulk and soft texture that binds the mixture together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the hash taste savoury and moist.

The step that matters

Keep the mixture moist but not wet. Chopping too finely makes the mash pasty, while too much liquid makes the hash steam rather than heat through with a pleasant texture. Keeping the moisture balanced preserves some texture and lets the hash warm evenly.

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.

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