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Beef Hash

A hash of leftover roast or boiled beef with diced potatoes, onions, and butter, simmered in broth and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef 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.

Make the hash

  1. In a saucepan, brown the chopped onion in butter.

  2. Add the diced beef and potatoes, season with salt and pepper.

  3. Pour in the white broth or hot water, cover, and stew for a few minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer to the oven and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 10 or more minutes.

  2. Serve in a covered dish, sprinkled with chopped parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Leftover roast or boiled beef
Provides the main protein and meaty flavour of the hash.
Cold sliced potatoes
Form the bulk of the hash and soften into a tender, starchy base.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it browns in butter.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the onion brown.
White broth
Supplies moisture so the hash stews and stays tender.

The step that matters

Browning the onion in butter. Browning the onion builds sweet, savoury flavour through caramelisation. Pale, undercooked onion tastes raw and flat, so it should be given time to colour before the other ingredients go in.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, onion, 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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