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Hashed Beef

A savory dish of sliced roast beef sautéed with onion, flour, stock, pickles, and served with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Hashed Beef

Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hashed Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove skin and gristle from the sliced cold roast beef.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter over medium heat and add the chopped onion.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook until it browns, being careful not to burn it.

  3. Gradually stir in the stock and a little coarse sea salt, then bring to a boil until thickened.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the chopped pickles and the slices of beef, heating them through.

  2. Serve with sippets of 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Cold roast beef
Provides the main protein, which is gently reheated in the sauce rather than cooked.
Butter
Carries the onion and forms the fat base for the roux.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in the butter.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a sauce once cooked with the butter and stirred in.
Stock
Forms the liquid of the sauce, adding savory flavor as it thickens.
Hot green pickles
Add sharp acidity and a spicy bite that cuts through the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour until it browns. Flour must be cooked in the butter long enough to lose its raw taste and gain color, but if it burns it turns bitter and dark. Stirring constantly over medium heat keeps it even.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour. 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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