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Hashed Beef, Potatoes and Bread Pudding

A savory bread pudding made with hashed beef, potatoes, milk, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Hashed Beef, Potatoes and Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the leftover roast beef into small pieces.

  2. Peel and dice the potatoes.

  3. In a skillet, cook the beef and potatoes together until heated through.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, whisk together milk, eggs, salt, and pepper.

  2. Add the bread to the mixture and let it soak.

Cook and set

  1. Pour the bread mixture over the beef and potatoes, and cook until set.

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard, binding the bread and filling into a sliceable mass.
Bread
Soaks up the milk and egg mixture, giving the pudding its soft, absorbent body.
Milk
Loosens the egg mixture so it coats the bread and sets with a tender texture.
Potatoes
Add starchy bulk and body, holding the pudding together as they cook through.

The step that matters

Cook until set. Eggs thicken as their proteins coagulate with heat. Cooking too briefly leaves the custard runny, while overcooking makes it rubbery and dry.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, milk, egg, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, milk, egg, pepper. 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.

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