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Canned Salt Beef, Hash

A hash made from canned salt beef, bread crumbs, onion, and fat, cooked in a pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Canned Salt Beef, Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the canned salt beef.

  2. Add the bacon fat or beef fat and enough water or soup stock to moisten the mixture.

  3. Season with pepper and a small amount of salt.

  4. Parboil the onion, chop it, and add it to the mixture. Optionally, fry the onion before adding it to the hash.

Brown

  1. Heat a frying pan and brown the mixture on both sides.

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

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Canned salt beef
Forms the main body of the hash and supplies its savory, meaty flavor.
Hard bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the mixture together.
Bacon fat or beef fat
Adds richness and helps the hash brown in the pan.
Onion
Adds aroma and sweetness that deepen the flavor of the hash.

The step that matters

Brown the mixture on both sides. The mixture must be moist enough to cook through but not so wet that it steams. Browning relies on direct contact with hot fat, which creates the crust and savory flavor.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, 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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