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Boston Brown Hash for Breakfast

A baked hash of steak remnants, mashed potatoes, stale bread crumbs, butter, gravy, and milk.

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

Boston Brown Hash for Breakfast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Assemble

  1. Chop the meat remnants very fine.

  2. Layer mashed potatoes in the bottom of a deep buttered dish.

  3. Add a layer of the chopped meat.

  4. Add a layer of stale bread crumbs.

  5. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  6. Dot the top with bits of butter.

  7. Moisten with ½ cup of gravy.

  8. Cover with another layer of mashed potatoes.

  9. Smooth the top with a knife dipped in milk.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes until well-browned.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Form the bulk of the layers and give a soft, moist body to the dish.
Stale bread crumbs
Soak up moisture and help the layers hold together as they bake.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Remnants of steak, roast, or stew
Supply the savory meat flavor that anchors the dish.
Milk
Brushed on the top, it helps the surface brown evenly in the oven.

The step that matters

Smooth the top with a knife dipped in milk. A smooth, evenly coated top browns uniformly; milk's sugars and proteins caramelize and brown during baking, so an uneven surface can burn in spots or stay pale.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, butter, milk. 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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