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Hash Cake

A skillet hash of finely chopped cold meat and potatoes, seasoned with pepper and salt, cooked with butter.

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 ↓

Hash Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cold meat and potatoes finely.

  2. Mix the meat and potatoes well, then season with pepper and salt.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat until hissing hot.

  2. Add the hash mixture to the skillet, pressing it down evenly.

  3. After 8 minutes, heat a plate, then invert the skillet onto the plate to serve.

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

Cold meat
Provides savoury flavour and body that holds the cake together with the potatoes.
Potatoes
Their starch binds the mixture and helps the surface turn crisp and golden when fried.
Butter
Fat that conducts heat evenly and adds richness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Invert the skillet onto the plate. The cake must be set and browned on the bottom before flipping. If it is undercooked, the potatoes are not yet bound by their starch and the cake will break apart when turned out.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, 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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