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Savory Hash

A hash of canned meat, onion, butter, flour, herbs, and vinegar, simmered into a thick gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Savory Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Peel and slice the onion, then add it to the melted butter.

  3. Stir in the flour and fry for 1–2 minutes until browned.

Prepare the meat

  1. Open the canned meat and remove the fat from the portion needed.

  2. Take 1½ pounds of meat from the can.

  3. If using all the meat, rinse the can with ½ pint warm water to make gravy.

Make the hash

  1. Pour the gravy into the saucepan and stir until it boils and thickens.

  2. Keep the saucepan warm off the heat.

  3. Finely chop the mixed pickles and stir them into the sauce.

  4. Add vinegar if preferred.

  5. Chop the parsley, marjoram, and thyme leaves finely and add to the mixture.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Butter
Adds richness and helps the flour brown and carry flavour.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it becomes a smooth, coating sauce.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, adding aroma to the base.
Canned meat
Provides the main body and texture of the hash.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the meat and sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the flour in the butter. Cooking the flour until lightly browned removes its raw, pasty taste and helps it thicken evenly. Adding liquid to unbrowned flour is more likely to leave lumps and a floury flavour.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, butter, flour, vinegar, pepper, mushroom, ketchup):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, flour, vinegar, pepper, mushroom, ketchup. 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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