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Browned Hash

A dish of mashed potatoes and ground meat fried in lard and topped with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Browned Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix cold mashed potatoes with cold ground meat.

  2. Heat a skillet with a little hot lard.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the potato and meat mixture to the skillet. Fry until browned.

  2. Serve with parsley leaves on top.

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

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

  2. Potato + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Meat + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,040 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

Cold mashed potatoes
Form the bulk of the hash and provide starch that crisps and browns in the fat.
Cold ground meat
Adds protein, savory flavor and richness that browns in the skillet.
Hot lard
Conducts heat and fat for frying, helping the surface brown and crisp.

The step that matters

Fry until browned. The hash needs enough contact with a hot, fat-coated skillet to form a deep brown crust. Stirring too often or crowding the pan lowers the surface temperature, so the mixture steams instead of browning.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, meat):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, meat. 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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