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Corned Beef Hash

A hash of boiled corned beef, boiled potatoes, onion juice, and pepper, cooked in butter or drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Corned Beef Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop or grind the corned beef.

  2. Mix the chopped corned beef with the boiled potatoes.

  3. Add a few drops of onion juice and pepper to taste.

Cook

  1. Heat the mixture in a pan, adding butter or drippings if dry.

  2. Cook until browned on one side, then fold like an omelet.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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 meat flavor and the savory body of the hash.
Potatoes
Supply starch and bulk that hold the hash together and help it brown.
Butter or drippings (in the method)
Add fat that keeps the hash moist and encourages even browning in the pan.

The step that matters

Cook until browned on one side, then fold like an omelet.. Browning develops rich flavor through the Maillard reaction, but the hash must sit undisturbed long enough to form a crust. Moving it too early prevents browning and leaves it soggy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, 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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