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Beef or Veal Hash

A hash of finely chopped cold beef or veal with boiled potatoes, onions, and stock, served on toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef or Veal Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hash

  1. Chop cold beef or veal very fine, removing gristle and skin.

  2. Mix with half as much chopped cold boiled potatoes; season with salt and pepper.

  3. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of flour over the mixture.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, sauté chopped onion in butter until soft.

  2. Add stock or water and boil down to half the quantity.

Combine and serve

  1. Just before serving, add the beef and potato mixture and chopped parsley.

  2. Let it scald for five minutes and serve on toasted bread.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef or veal
Provides the main meat flavour and body of the hash.
Potatoes
Bulk out the meat and add soft texture and moisture to the mixture.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the hash binds together.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens in butter.
Stock or water
Provides the liquid that is reduced to a flavourful, thickened moisture.

The step that matters

Boiling down the stock. Reducing the stock concentrates its flavour and thickens it slightly, so the hash is moist but not watery. Boiling too little leaves the mixture thin, while over-reducing can make it too dry or salty.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, pepper, flour, butter, parsley, 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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