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Fried Potato Hash

A fried hash of boiled potatoes, butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Fried Potato Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil and cool the potatoes with their skins on, then peel and chop them coarsely.

  2. Melt the sweet drippings or butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

Fry and serve

  1. Add the chopped potatoes to the pan and sprinkle generously with pepper and salt.

  2. Using a long knife, gently lift the potatoes from the bottom every minute or two to avoid mashing them.

  3. Fry until the edges are well browned, then serve.

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

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the bulk of the hash and, once fried, a crisp browned exterior over a soft interior.
Sweet drippings or butter
Conduct heat and add fat so the potatoes fry and brown rather than steam.

The step that matters

Lifting the potatoes gently. Cooked potatoes are soft and break apart easily. Turning them only occasionally, with a long knife lifted from below, keeps the pieces intact and lets their surfaces make direct contact with the hot pan so they brown.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Carrotfits less well
  4. Onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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