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To Hash Beef

A dish of thinly sliced beef simmered with herbs, onions, and wine, then thickened into a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,081 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Hash Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beef

  1. If the meat is raw, hang it until tender, then cut into thin slices.

  2. Place the slices in a stewpan with enough water to cover them, sweet herbs, onion, pepper, and salt.

  3. Cover the stewpan and simmer until tender.

Make the gravy

  1. Add port wine and shallot vinegar, then warm the mixture.

  2. Strain the gravy through a fine sieve to remove herbs and vegetables.

  3. Return the gravy to the saucepan with the beef and thicken with butter kneaded in flour and brown sugar.

Finish the hash

  1. If using cooked meat, mince shallot and onion, then fry in butter.

  2. Add flour, gravy, and walnut liquor or ketchup, and bring to a boil.

  3. Add the thin slices of beef and heat through without boiling.

  4. Optionally, add sliced potatoes and onions.

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. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

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

  4. Port wine + shallottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  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

Beef
Becomes tender through slow simmering, and its slices make up the body of the hash.
Butter and flour
Form a roux-style thickener that gives the gravy body and a smooth, coating texture.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the gravy, giving it a rich, fruity flavour.
Shallot vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and balances its sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a caramel note that rounds out the gravy's flavour.

The step that matters

Heat through without boiling. Once the beef slices are added, boiling would toughen the meat and can cause the thickened gravy to break or turn grainy. Gentle heat keeps the meat tender and the sauce smooth.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, port wine, shallot, vinegar, butter, flour):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, port wine, shallot, vinegar, butter, flour. 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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