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Corn Beef Hash

A hash of chopped corned beef, potatoes, onions, and cream, browned in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Corn Beef Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the inside of a frying pan with a cut onion.

  2. Heat the butter in the pan.

Make the hash

  1. Add the corned beef, potatoes, salt, and pepper, mixing well.

  2. Moisten the mixture with cream, spreading it evenly.

  3. Cook on low heat until browned underneath, or place in the oven to brown.

Serve

  1. Fold the hash over and turn it out onto a platter.

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 + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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, meaty flavor and the chewy body of the hash.
Potatoes
Form the bulk of the hash and their starch helps the surface brown and crisp.
Cream
Adds moisture that softens the mixture and binds it together as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat for frying, carrying flavor and helping the underside brown.

The step that matters

Cooking until browned underneath. Cooking on low heat lets the underside form a brown crust slowly. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction, which needs surface dryness and gradual heat, while the middle warms through without burning.

“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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