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Corn Beef Hash

A baked hash of corned beef, potatoes, butter, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 938 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Corn Beef Hash

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Drop the corned beef into boiling water and simmer for 30 minutes per pound.

  2. When cold, chop the corned beef and cooked potatoes coarsely.

Make the hash

  1. Butter the bottom of a skillet.

  2. Add the meat and potato mixture to the skillet.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Add the butter and milk.

  5. Place the skillet in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  6. Stir the hash every 10 minutes.

Brown and serve

  1. Reserve half the butter for browning.

  2. Melt the reserved butter in a frying pan.

  3. Add the mixture to the pan.

  4. Cook without stirring until browned underneath.

  5. Fold and serve.

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. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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 savory flavour and chewy meat texture of the hash.
Cooked potatoes
Supply starch that helps bind the hash and form a crisp browned crust.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and helps the surface brown in the pan.
Milk
Adds moisture that softens the mixture as it bakes.

The step that matters

Cook without stirring until browned underneath. Leaving the hash undisturbed lets its underside touch the hot pan long enough to brown and form a crust. Stirring too early breaks up that contact, so the hash stays soft and pale instead of crisp.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits less well
  4. Carrotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, beef, butter, pepper, milk. 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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