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Warmed-Over Meat Hash

A hash of finely chopped leftover meat and potatoes, seasoned with salt and flour, cooked in butter or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Warmed-Over Meat Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hash

  1. Chop the leftover meat very fine.

  2. Peel and chop the potatoes to match the quantity of meat.

  3. Dredge the chopped meat and potatoes with coarse sea salt and flour.

  4. Place the mixture in a frying pan with a little water to moisten.

  5. Add butter if the meat is lean.

  6. Cook until heated through.

  7. Add pepper just before serving.

Make the gravy

  1. Brown bones and trimmings with chopped onion and salt pork in a frying pan.

  2. Add boiling water.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Thicken with flour.

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 + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  4. Meat + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,208 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Leftover cooked meat
Forms the body of the hash and provides its main savory flavor.
Potatoes
Bulk the hash and, once cooked, add starchy body and soft texture.
Flour
Coats the pieces and later thickens the gravy by absorbing liquid.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helpful when the meat is lean.
Salt pork
Renders fat and savory flavor into the gravy as it browns.

The step that matters

Thicken with flour. Flour must be cooked to remove its raw taste and mixed smoothly into the liquid, or it forms lumps and the gravy stays pasty rather than silky.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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