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Hashed Brown Potatoes

A dish of cubed potatoes sautéed with butter, flour, stock, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hashed Brown Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, sprinkle the cubed potatoes with salt and pepper.

Make the sauce

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat and add the flour, mixing well.

  2. Slowly pour in the stock while stirring to combine.

Cook and brown

  1. Add the seasoned potatoes to the skillet and cook for 10 minutes.

  2. Fold the mixture over and allow it to brown.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish, providing starch that softens and browns on the skillet surface.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the potatoes brown in the pan.
Flour
Mixed with butter and stock to thicken the liquid into a light sauce.
Stock
Adds liquid that combines with the flour to form a thickened, savory coating.

The step that matters

Fold the mixture over and allow it to brown. Browning needs direct contact with a hot pan and time to undisturbed. Turning too early keeps the potatoes pale and steamed instead of crisp and golden.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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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