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Corned Beef Hash

A fried hash of corned beef, potatoes, butter, milk, and flour, seasoned with red pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Corned Beef Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a wooden bowl, mix the chopped meat and potatoes with a fork.

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

Cook

  1. Add the meat and potato mixture to the pan.

  2. Sprinkle with red pepper.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the flour into the milk, then pour it over the meat and potatoes.

  4. Cover and cook until browned.

Serve

  1. Invert onto a platter and serve immediately.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked meat
Provides the savory, meaty flavor that defines the hash.
Potatoes
Form the bulk of the hash and brown into crisp-edged pieces.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the hash brown in the pan.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess that binds the mixture.
Flour
Thickens the milk so it clings to the meat and potatoes.

The step that matters

Cover and cook until browned. Cooking covered traps steam that heats the mixture through, while the uncovered contact with the pan's surface is what browns it. Too much covering steams the hash instead of browning it, and too little heat leaves it pale and soft.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, milk, flour, 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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