Skip to main content
Main

Hashed Brown Potatoes

A dish of finely chopped boiled potatoes sautéed with butter, fat, salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Hashed Brown Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cold boiled potatoes finely.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley.

Cook

  1. In a skillet, heat 2 heaping tablespoons of butter and mixed fat.

  2. Add the potatoes and brown them on the bottom.

  3. Fold the potatoes in the shape of an omelet.

  4. Carefully slip onto a hot platter without disturbing.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

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

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the body of the dish, turning crisp on the outside while staying soft inside.
Butter
Adds fat for frying, helping the potatoes brown and carrying flavor.
Fat
Raises the frying temperature and helps the potatoes brown evenly without burning.

The step that matters

Browning the bottom before folding. The potatoes must form a firm, golden crust on the bottom before folding. If they are stirred or moved too early, the crust will not form and the cake will break apart.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes