Name: Beef Hash
Ingredients: 1 pint scraps of meat, cut fine; 1 large Irish potato, cut fine; 1 small onion, cut fine; pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; stock from meat; 1 tablespoon butter (optional); 1 tablespoon flour

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 ↓

Beef Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Combine the meat, potato, onion, pepper, and salt in a pot.
Add the stock from the meat.
If it is not rich enough, include the butter.
Thicken the mixture with flour.
Bring to a boil and cook until done.
Serve hot.

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.

Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

Flour: Thickens the stock into a sauce that coats the meat and potato.
Potato: Adds starch and body, helping the hash hold together and become hearty.
Butter: Adds fat and richness to the stock, improving flavor and mouthfeel.

Swap the onion

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

Chivefits better
Shallotfits about as well
Asparagusfits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, potato, 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.