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Heat Hash

Heat Hash is a dish of chopped meat, potatoes, butter, and stock cooked in a pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Heat Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hash

  1. In a frying pan, combine the chopped meat, potatoes, butter, and stock or water.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Cook over medium heat for about 8 minutes, stirring gently to avoid burning.

  4. Cover the pan and reduce heat to brown slowly for about 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Fold the hash like an omelet and transfer to a hot dish.

  2. Garnish with toast points and parsley, and serve hot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked meat
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the hash.
Boiled potatoes
Add starch that helps bind the hash and gives it a soft, tender texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the surface brown in the pan.
Stock or hot water
Supplies moisture so the hash cooks through without drying out.

The step that matters

Covered slow browning. Reducing the heat and covering the pan gently cooks the hash through while the bottom browns. Too high a heat would scorch the butter and sugars before the centre is hot, leaving the hash burnt on the outside and uneven inside.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits less well
  4. Mustardfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, 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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