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Corned-beef Hash, New-england Style

A savory hash of chopped corned beef and boiled potatoes, cooked with butter and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Corned-beef Hash, New-england Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove all cartilage and skin from the cold corned beef, leaving the fat, and chop it finely.

  2. Chop an equal quantity of cold boiled potatoes by measure.

  3. Season the beef and potatoes with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the beef and potatoes to the pan and stir until heated through.

  3. Press the mixture firmly together in an oblong shape on one side of the pan.

  4. Let the bottom brown nicely, then turn the hash out onto a hot dish without disturbing its shape.

  5. Serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold corned beef
Provides the main meaty body and savory flavor, with its fat adding richness to the hash.
Cold boiled potatoes
Supply starch and bulk that bind the hash and help it hold together while browning.
Butter
Adds fat for frying, promoting browning on the bottom and a rich flavor.

The step that matters

Let the bottom brown nicely before turning. Browning the bottom develops flavor through the Maillard reaction and forms a crust that helps the hash keep its shape when turned out. Turning too early leaves it pale and likely to break apart.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, 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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