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New England Hash

A savory hash of corned beef, potatoes, turnip, carrot, beets, and milk, cooked in butter or drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

New England Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the corned beef, potatoes, turnip, carrot, and beets until you have the required amounts.

  2. Melt the butter or beef drippings in a very hot frying pan.

Cook

  1. Moisten the chopped ingredients with the milk and add a bit of pepper.

  2. Turn the mixture into the hot, buttered pan and cook for 3 to 4 minutes without stirring.

  3. Remove from heat and cover, cooking for an additional 10 to 15 minutes.

  4. Turn out onto a heated round platter, ensuring a golden brown crust forms.

Serve

  1. Garnish with parsley and serve with homemade cucumber or tomato pickle.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Corned beef
Provides the main meaty body and salty, savoury flavour of the hash.
Potatoes
Supply starch and bulk, helping the hash hold together and crisp on the surface.
Butter or beef drippings
Fat that conducts heat for browning and adds rich flavour to the crust.
Milk
Moistens the chopped ingredients so the hash cooks tender rather than dry.
Beets
Add earthy sweetness and a deep colour to the hash.

The step that matters

Leaving the hash undisturbed in the hot pan. Stirring breaks up the mixture and prevents a crust from forming. Undisturbed contact with a very hot, fatted pan lets the bottom brown, which gives the golden crust and a contrast in texture.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, carrot, butter, milk, pepper, parsley. 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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