Name: Hash, Creole Style
Ingredients: 1 slice of onion, finely chopped; ½ cup of cold, boiled potatoes, diced; ¼ green or red pepper, in cubes; 2 tablespoons of butter; ½ cup of broth; 1 cup of cooked meat, in cubes; ½ cup of tomato puree; Salt, to taste

Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Hash, Creole Style

Ingredients

Directions

Melt the butter in a hot frying pan.
Add the chopped onion and pepper; cook until soft.
Stir in the cold potatoes and cooked meat.
Pour in the broth and tomato puree; mix well.
Cook until heated through, then season with salt.
Serve hot.

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.

Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,798 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Adds fat for frying and richness, helping the vegetables brown and carry flavour.
Onion: Softens as it cooks, adding sweetness and aroma to the base of the hash.
Potatoes: Provide starchy body and bulk that hold the hash together as it heats.
Cooked meat: Supplies the main savoury, protein-rich bulk of the dish.
Tomato puree: Adds acidity, concentrated tomato flavour and colour to the sauce.

Swap the tomato

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

Chivefits better
Capsicumfits about as well
Carrotfits about as well
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, potato, pepper, butter, meat. 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.