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Hashed Beef a LA Francaise

A dish of thinly sliced cold beef sautéed with onion, flour, butter, and seasonings, finished with gravy or stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Hashed Beef a LA Francaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Add the chopped onion.

  3. Stir in the flour.

  4. Cook until pale brown.

  5. Add the gravy or stock.

  6. Season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  7. Cook for two minutes.

Add the beef and serve

  1. Cut the cold beef into thin slices.

  2. Add the sliced beef to the chafing dish.

  3. Heat thoroughly before serving.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold beef
Forms the main body of the hash and is warmed through in the sauce.
Butter
Carries the onion and forms the base for the flour, adding richness.
Flour
Thickens the gravy or stock into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens in the butter.
Gravy or stock
Provides the liquid that becomes the sauce and moistens the beef.

The step that matters

Cook the flour until pale brown. Cooking the flour in butter until pale brown removes its raw taste and helps it thicken the liquid smoothly without lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, flour, parsley, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, parsley, pepper, nutmeg. 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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