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Hash on Toast

A dish of chopped cold meat simmered in gravy or stock, served over buttered toast with lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Hash on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hash

  1. Chop the cold meat into small bits.

  2. Heat the meat with gravy or stock, adding water if necessary.

  3. Mix butter and flour to thicken the mixture slightly.

Assemble and serve

  1. Dip the buttered toast in boiling water for an instant.

  2. Pour the meat mixture over the toast and serve with lemon slices.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Cold meat
Forms the main body of the hash and provides its savory flavor.
Gravy or stock
Adds moisture and savory flavor as the meat heats through.
Butter and flour
Cooked together, they thicken the liquid slightly into a smoother sauce.
Bread
Serves as the base, soaking up the hot meat mixture while staying structured.

The step that matters

Dipping the toast in boiling water. A brief dip softens the buttered toast so it absorbs the sauce, but leaving it too long makes it soggy and falling apart. Work quickly and serve right away.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, flour, bread. 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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