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An Excellent Hash of Cold Beef

A hash made from cold beef, butter, herbs, onion, flour, spices, broth, ketchup, and toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

An Excellent Hash of Cold Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

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

  2. Add the minced herbs and chopped onion or shallots; cook until lightly browned.

  3. Stir in the flour, cayenne, mace or nutmeg, and salt until well combined.

  4. Pour in the broth or gravy and let it boil gently for 15 minutes.

  5. Strain the mixture, then add the mushroom or compound ketchup.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the cold beef and keep it warm by the fire until heated through, but do not let it boil.

  2. Place fried or toasted bread sippets in a hot dish and serve the hash immediately.

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

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

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

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

  3. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

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

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

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

Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, lightly body sauce as it cooks.
Broth or gravy
Forms the liquid base that the beef is heated in and carries the flavour.
Onion or shallots
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it browns in the butter.
Mushroom or compound ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury depth and acidity to the sauce.
Cold beef (in the method)
Provides the main protein; it is only warmed through, so it stays tender.

The step that matters

Add the cold beef without boiling. Once the sauce has been strained and thickened, boiling the meat again can toughen its proteins and make it dry and stringy. Gentle heat warms it through while keeping it tender.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, flour, pepper, mushroom, 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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