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Hashed Browned Potatoes

A dish of finely chopped boiled potatoes cooked with butter, salt, and pepper until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hashed Browned Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cold boiled potatoes finely and dust with salt and pepper.

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

Cook the potatoes

  1. Add the potatoes, spreading them evenly to about ½ inch thick.

  2. Cook slowly without stirring for about 15 minutes.

  3. Carefully roll the potatoes over from one side of the pan as if making an omelet.

  4. Pack the potatoes against one side of the pan.

Serve

  1. Place a small dish against the side of the pan and turn the pan over to transfer the potatoes onto the dish.

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

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the bulk; their starch crisps and binds into a browned, tender cake when cooked cold.
Butter
Conducts heat evenly and fries the surface, adding browning and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Cook without stirring. A browned crust forms only where the potatoes stay in contact with the hot pan. Stirring or lifting them breaks that crust, so the potatoes turn pale and loose instead of holding together in a crisp layer.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Carrotfits less well
  4. Onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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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