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Hash Cakes

Hash cakes are fried potato, meat, and onion patties served with poached eggs on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hash Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and fry

  1. Chop the potatoes, meat, and onion finely.

  2. In a skillet, melt butter over medium heat.

  3. Add the chopped mixture to the skillet and fry until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve the hash cakes topped with poached eggs on toast.

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 + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the bulk and starch that hold the chopped mixture together and help it crisp.
Meat
Adds savoury flavour and fat, and its proteins set as it cooks, giving the cakes body.
Onion
Adds aroma and a touch of sweetness as it softens and browns in the pan.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds fat that promotes browning and a rich flavour.
Poached eggs
Add richness and moisture, as the runny yolk spreads over the hash cakes.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown. Browning develops flavour through the Maillard reaction and forms a crisp crust that helps the cakes hold together. Pale, undercooked cakes will be soft and crumbly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, meat, pepper, butter, egg. 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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