Skip to main content
Main

Corned Beef Hash

A hash of chopped corned beef and cold boiled potatoes, cooked in butter and liquid until a crust forms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Corned Beef Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mix equal parts chopped corned beef and cold boiled potatoes in a bowl.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and onion juice if desired.

Cook

  1. In a frying pan, melt butter and add enough milk, stock, or hot water to moisten the hash.

  2. Add the meat and potato mixture to the pan, mixing gently to avoid mashing the potatoes.

  3. Cover and cook slowly for 30 minutes, or until a crust forms on the bottom.

  4. Carefully turn the hash onto a hot dish, similar to an omelet.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  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

Cooked corned beef
Provides the main meat flavor and savory, chewy bulk of the hash.
Cold boiled potatoes
Supplies starchy body that binds the hash and helps form a browned crust.
Butter
Adds fat for frying, richness, and browning on the bottom of the hash.
Milk, stock, or hot water
Adds moisture so the hash stays tender rather than drying out in the pan.

The step that matters

Cook slowly, covered, without mashing. Gentle mixing keeps potato pieces intact for texture, and slow covered cooking heats the hash through while the bottom browns into a crust rather than burning.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, pepper, butter, milk):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, pepper, butter, milk. 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

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes