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Hashed Brown Potatoes

A dish of diced boiled potatoes sautéed with onion, butter, flour, and cream, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Hashed Brown Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the potatoes into very small dice.

  2. Heat the lard in a frying pan.

  3. Add the sliced onion and cook until light brown.

Cook

  1. Add the butter and, when melted, add the diced potatoes.

  2. Press the potatoes down lightly.

  3. Sift the flour and seasoning over the potatoes.

  4. Pour the cream on top.

  5. Place the potatoes over a hot fire for a few minutes.

  6. Reduce the heat to low and cook for 15 to 20 minutes.

  7. Fold the potatoes.

  8. Turn the folded potatoes onto a hot serving plate.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and crisp on the surface while staying tender inside.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and helps bind the potatoes into a cohesive cake.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness that softens the potatoes and helps them cook through.
Lard
Conducts heat and fat for frying, promoting browning on the potato surface.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory aroma as it browns in the fat.

The step that matters

Reduce the heat to low and cook for 15 to 20 minutes. Starting with a hot fire browns the bottom, but low heat afterward lets the potatoes cook through without scorching. Too high a heat for the full time would burn the crust before the interior is tender.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, flour, cream, 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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