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Hashed Beef

A dish of sliced cooked beef mixed with flour, onion, salt, pepper, simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Hashed Beef

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Hashed Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef into small thin slices and place on a plate.

  2. Add flour, chopped onion, salt, and pepper to the beef and mix well.

Cook

  1. Put the mixture into a saucepan with water and stir over heat until just boiling.

  2. Reduce heat and let it simmer for 10 minutes before serving.

  3. For improved appearance, add brown gravy or coloring, and for flavor, include herbs or catsup.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  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 cooking liquid into a gravy-like sauce that coats the beef.
Onion
Adds savoury aromatic flavour that deepens the taste of the sauce.
Cooked beef
Provides the main body and meaty flavour of the dish.

The step that matters

Stirring until just boiling, then simmering gently. Flour needs to be heated and dispersed evenly in the liquid to thicken properly without lumps. Once boiling, lowering the heat to a gentle simmer keeps the beef tender rather than tough and dry.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Cuminfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, onion, 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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