Name: Cracker Hash
Ingredients: biscuit; onion; salt meat; pepper; herbs; scalding water; clean fat

Why it works: Biscuit and onion work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 428 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cracker Hash

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Pound the biscuit very fine and sift it through a sieve if available.
Chop the onion and salt meat, then add them to the biscuit.
Season the mixture with pepper and herbs.
Pour scalding water over the mixture until soaked.
Add a little clean fat, mix well, and transfer to baking pans.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown.

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.

Biscuit + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together428 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together841 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Biscuit + meattop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together159 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Onion + meattop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,364 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).