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Potato Hash

A savory dish of boiled potatoes mixed with finely chopped beef and pork, seasoned with pepper, salt, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Potato Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender.

  2. Mash the boiled potatoes.

Cook the meat

  1. In a large skillet, cook the chopped pork until the fat is rendered.

  2. Add the chopped beef to the skillet and cook until browned.

Combine and finish

  1. Stir the mashed potatoes into the skillet with the beef.

  2. Season with black pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Add butter if desired.

  4. Cook until browned.

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 + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Potato + beeftop 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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the hash, providing starch that softens into a tender, moist body.
Beef
Adds savory meaty flavor and browns in the skillet for a richer crust.
Fat pork
Its rendered fat cooks the meat and carries flavor through the hash.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the hash brown with a nutty aroma.

The step that matters

Cook until browned. The potatoes and meat need enough time in a hot skillet for browning, which builds deep flavor through the Maillard reaction. Stopping early leaves the hash pale and bland.

“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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