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Hashed Fowl

A hash of cold fowl simmered in stock, thickened with flour and butter, served with poached eggs, parsley, and fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a stew-pan, combine the stock, a little salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  2. Thicken the mixture with flour and butter, then bring to a boil.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add the pieces of fowl to warm them through.

  2. Serve the hash topped with poached eggs and a sprig of parsley in the center.

  3. Garnish the plate with pieces of fried bread.

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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold fowl
Provides the main body of the hash, cooked already and warmed through gently in the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the stock together with butter, giving the sauce body so it clings to the fowl.
Butter
Combines with flour to form a roux that thickens the stock and adds richness.
Poached eggs
Add soft, runny yolk that enriches the hash when broken into the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with flour and butter, then bring to a boil. Flour must be cooked with the butter and stock so it swells and thickens smoothly; if it is undercooked or added in clumps, the sauce tastes raw and turns lumpy.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, butter, egg, parsley, bread. 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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