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Beef Kidney Hash

A hash made from boiled beef kidney, onion, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Kidney Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the kidney into pieces, removing all fat.

  2. Soak the kidney in cold water with ½ teaspoon of salt overnight.

Cook

  1. Place the kidney in a kettle with 1 quart of cold water and a small onion.

  2. Boil until tender, changing the water once during boiling.

Finish the hash

  1. Chop the cooked kidney, but not too fine, and return it to a kettle.

  2. Add some of the cooking liquid, salt, pepper, butter, curry, and sprinkle with dry flour to achieve a creamy consistency.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Beef kidney
Forms the main body of the hash, giving it a meaty, chewy texture once chopped.
Dry flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the chopped kidney becomes creamy rather than watery.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and smoothing the texture of the hash.
Curry powder
Contributes aromatic spice flavour that defines the dish.

The step that matters

Boil until tender, changing the water once during boiling.. Kidney is dense and tough if undercooked, and the water change helps remove strong, bitter flavours released during cooking. Stopping too early leaves the meat chewy and the hash unpleasant.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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