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Corned Beef Hash

A hash of chopped corned beef and boiled potatoes, cooked with milk or stock and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,517 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Corned Beef Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove skin, fat, and gristle from the corned beef and chop it finely.

  2. Boil the potatoes in their jackets, then peel and chop them finely.

  3. Mix the chopped meat and potatoes together thoroughly, seasoning with salt and pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a well-buttered skillet or baking dish.

  2. Moisten with milk or stock and spread evenly.

  3. Cook slowly until browned underneath; fold like an omelet onto a hot serving platter.

  4. If desired, place a clove of garlic in the center while cooking and remove before folding.

  5. Garnish with poached eggs or serve with Hollandaise sauce.

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 + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,517 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Pepper + potatotop 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

Corned beef
Provides the main meaty flavor and the bulk of the hash.
Potatoes
Add starch that binds the hash and helps it brown crisply on the surface.
Milk or stock
Adds moisture so the hash stays tender rather than drying out while it cooks.
Garlic
Adds a sharp aroma to the hash while it cooks; removed before folding.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until browned underneath. Gentle heat lets the bottom of the hash brown through the Maillard reaction without burning, while the interior heats through. Rushing with high heat can scorch the base before the center is hot.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, milk, pepper, potato, garlic):

  1. Rosemaryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, milk, pepper, potato, garlic. 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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