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Hashed Meat

A broth of cold meat, bone, herbs, and vegetables, finished with fried onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Hashed Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Remove all meat from the bone and slice it thinly.

  2. Chop the bone into pieces and place them in a saucepan.

  3. Peel and quarter one onion.

  4. Wash, scrape, and quarter the carrot.

  5. Wash and dry the sprig of parsley.

  6. Tie the bay leaf, marjoram, thyme, and parsley together with string.

  7. Add the herbs and vegetables to the saucepan with the bones and cover with cold water.

  8. Bring the saucepan to a boil, then add salt and pepper to taste.

  9. Cover and reduce heat to simmer for 1 to 1.5 hours, skimming occasionally.

Fry the onion

  1. Peel and slice the second onion.

  2. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

  3. Add the sliced onion to the pan and fry until golden 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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Carrot + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat and bone
Provides the flavour and body of the stock, and the sliced meat for the dish.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they soften and brown in butter.
Flour
Thickens the sauce and gives it body.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when frying the onion.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami flavour to the dish.

The step that matters

Fry the onion until golden brown. Onions brown through the Maillard reaction and caramelisation, which build savoury, sweet flavour. Too little heat leaves them pale and raw-tasting, while too much heat scorches them bitter before the centre softens.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, carrot, marjoram, thyme, parsley, flour, mushroom):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, carrot, marjoram, thyme, parsley, flour, mushroom. 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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