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An Excellent Hash of Cold Beef

A hash made from cold beef, broth, herbs, and spices, served over toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

An Excellent Hash of Cold Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a thick saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the minced herbs and chopped onion or shallots; cook until lightly browned.

  3. Stir in the flour, cayenne, mace or nutmeg, and salt; cook until well colored.

  4. Pour in the broth or gravy and let it boil gently for 15 minutes.

  5. Strain the mixture, then add the mushroom or compound ketchup.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the cold beef and heat gently without boiling until warmed through.

  2. Serve the hash over fried or toasted bread sippets in a hot dish.

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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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 and richness, and helps the onion and herbs brown in the pan.
Onion or shallots
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as they brown, building the flavor base.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a sauce that clings to the cold beef.
Broth or gravy
Provides the liquid base and savory body of the hash sauce.
Mushroom or compound ketchup
Adds concentrated savory depth and a tangy, umami note to the sauce.
Cold beef (in the method)
Is the main protein, warmed gently in the sauce so it stays tender.

The step that matters

Heat the beef without boiling. Boiling toughens meat proteins and can make cooked beef dry and stringy, so warming it gently keeps it tender.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, flour, pepper, mushroom, 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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