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Hashed Beef

A stew of sliced beef, tomatoes, carrots, turnips, onions, and gravy seasoned with Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, and celery seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Hashed Beef

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Hashed Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy base

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and cook until browned.

  3. Gradually stir in the gravy or water and bring to a boil.

Simmer the hash

  1. Add the tomatoes, carrot, turnip, onion, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, and salt.

  2. Simmer slowly for one hour, skimming the fat from the gravy.

  3. Add the sliced beef and cook gently for forty minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve neatly, straining the gravy over the dish.

  2. Garnish with toasted croutons and 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold cooked beef
Provides the meat that is warmed through and tenderized by gentle simmering.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when cooked in butter and combined with liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for cooking the flour and gives the gravy richness.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture that give the gravy a bright flavor.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body as it softens during long simmering.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and body as it softens during long simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly for one hour, skimming the fat from the gravy. A slow, gentle simmer keeps the vegetables tender without breaking them down and the meat from toughening. Skimming removes surface fat so the gravy stays clean-tasting rather than greasy.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, pepper, carrot, turnip, celery, flour):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, pepper, carrot, turnip, celery, flour. 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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