Name: Potato and Beef Hash
Ingredients: cold beef, minced; fat from the beef; cold boiled potatoes, chopped; pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; gravy or hot water, as needed; wheat flour, for dredging; butter (optional, if using water instead of gravy)

Why it works: Potato and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 235 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Potato and Beef Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Combine minced cold beef and fat in a bowl.
Add an equal amount or twice as much chopped cold boiled potatoes.
Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Add enough gravy or hot water to moisten the mixture.

Cook and serve

Transfer to a stew pan over gentle heat.
Dredge in a small amount of wheat flour and stir with a spoon.
Cover the stew pan and let it simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.
Serve with or without a slice of toast underneath.

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.

Potato + wheattop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together235 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,052 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + wheattop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together319 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold beef: Provides the main meaty body and savoury flavour of the hash.
Cold boiled potatoes: Add bulk and soft texture, and help thicken the mixture as they break down.
Wheat flour: Thickens the moistened mixture so it holds together rather than running loose.
Gravy or hot water: Adds moisture so the hash stays tender and does not dry out while simmering.

The step that matters

Simmering over gentle heat with occasional stirring. Flour and meat juices settle on the base of the pan and scorch easily. Gentle heat and regular stirring keep the hash from burning while the starch thickens and the flavours blend.

Swap the potato

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

Potatothe original
Chivefits about as well
Leekfits about as well
Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, wheat, flour, butter. 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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Potato and Beef Hash