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Caxxed Salt Beef, Hash

A hash made from salted beef, bread crumbs, onion, and fat, seasoned with pepper and coarse sea salt.

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 ↓

Caxxed Salt Beef, Hash

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the salt beef into small pieces.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped beef, bacon fat or beef fat, and enough water or soup stock to moisten the mixture.

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

  4. Parboil the onion, chop it, and add it to the mixture.

  5. Optionally, fry the onion before adding it to the hash.

Cook

  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

Salt beef
Provides the main meaty body and savory flavor of the hash.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help bind the hash together.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness that deepens as it cooks.
Bacon fat or beef fat
Carries flavor and helps the mixture brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Browning the mixture in the pan. The mixture is already moist from the added water or stock, so it can steam instead of browning. Heating the pan well and pressing the hash to make direct contact lets the surface brown and develop 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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