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Wet Hash

Wet hash is a stew of cooked beef, onion, and potatoes simmered in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Wet Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat into half‑inch pieces.

  2. Parboil and mince the onion.

  3. Chop the boiled potatoes into very small pieces.

Cook

  1. Mix the meat, onion, and potatoes together; season with pepper and salt.

  2. Put the mixture into a pot and stir in the hot stock or water.

  3. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring frequently until the meat is tender.

Serve

  1. Pour the hash into a dish containing toasted or fried bread and serve.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked beef, veal, or mutton
Provides the main body and savoury flavour of the hash.
Boiled potatoes
Thicken the mixture as they break down and add soft body to the hash.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens in the liquid.
Stock, gravy, beef dripping, or water
Supplies moisture so the hash stays tender and cooks through while simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer covered, stirring frequently. Gentle covered simmering keeps the liquid from evaporating too fast and lets the meat's connective tissue soften. Frequent stirring prevents sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, pepper. 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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