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Ragout. Hash. Minced Veal.

A ragout hash of minced veal, cold meats, potatoes, onion, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Ragout. Hash. Minced Veal.

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer the meat and potatoes

  1. Place the small pieces of cold meat in a stewpan and cover with water.

  2. Add the minced onion and sliced cold boiled potatoes.

  3. Heat until boiling, then thicken with flour.

Season and finish

  1. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and a dash of cayenne pepper if desired.

  2. Mince the onion finely or cook it separately before adding to the stew.

  3. Ensure the meats are heated through but not boiled.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  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).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meats
Provides the main body and savoury flavour of the hash.
Cold boiled potatoes
Softens and adds bulk, thickening the mixture as they break down.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, sauce-like ragout.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens in the liquid.

The step that matters

Heat the meat through without boiling. Prolonged boiling toughens meat proteins and dries them out, leaving them stringy. Gentle heat keeps the meat tender and juicy while it warms through.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, potato, flour, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

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