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Hash

A dish of finely chopped meat and potatoes mixed with salt, flour, and butter, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the meat very fine.

  2. Use an equal amount of potatoes, or slightly more for a plain hash.

  3. Dredge the chopped meat and potatoes with salt and flour while mixing.

Cook and serve

  1. Place in a frying pan with a little water to moisten and add butter if the meat is lean.

  2. Add pepper just 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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Meat
Provides the main savory body and flavor of the hash.
Potatoes
Add starch and bulk, giving the hash a soft, hearty texture.
Flour
Coats the chopped pieces so they hold together and brown lightly.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the hash brown and taste rounder.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Leekfits about as well

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