Skip to main content
Main

Hashed Beef and Broiled Bones

A hash of cold sirloin beef with broiled bones, onions, vinegar, and beef stock, finished with walnut ketchup and gherkins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hashed Beef and Broiled Bones

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef fillet into collop-sized pieces and prepare the bones.

  2. Score the bones and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Broil the bones over a clear fire for about 5 minutes.

  4. Place the hash on a dish and top with the broiled bones.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stew pan, combine beef trimmings, bones, sliced onions, vinegar, and beef stock.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer for 1 hour, then strain and skim the fat.

  3. Melt butter in a stew pan, add flour to absorb the butter, and stir in the strained liquid.

  4. Strain again through a fine sieve and return to the pan.

Finish

  1. Add walnut ketchup and sliced gherkins, then stir in the meat and heat without boiling.

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

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Sirloin beef fillet
Provides the meaty base of the hash, with tenderness depending on gentle heating.
Beef stock
Supplies the liquid and savoury body that forms the sauce.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding depth to the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and gives a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Absorbs the butter and thickens the liquid through starch.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Heat the meat without boiling. Once the meat goes into the sauce, boiling can toughen the protein and make it dry and stringy. Gentle heating keeps it tender and the sauce smooth.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, onion, vinegar, butter, flour, ketchup):

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, onion, vinegar, butter, flour, ketchup. 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes