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Potato Hash

A fried mixture of cooked potatoes, meat or fish, fat, and seasonings, cooked until browned and folded like an omelet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hash

  1. Melt the fat in a frying pan.

  2. Add the potatoes and meat, mixing them together.

  3. Pour the boiling water over the top.

  4. Cook slowly without stirring until the underside is browned.

Serve

  1. Fold the mixture like an omelet and serve hot.

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

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

  2. Potato + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Pepper + meattop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked potato
Forms the bulk of the hash and gives it a soft, starchy body.
Cooked meat or fish
Adds savory protein and flavor that carries through the whole dish.
Fat
Conducts heat into the pan and helps the underside brown and crisp.
Boiling water
Adds moisture that steams the mixture and keeps it from drying out.

The step that matters

Cook slowly without stirring until the underside is browned. Leaving the hash undisturbed lets a crust form on the bottom through browning. Stirring breaks that crust apart, and cooking too fast can scorch the underside before the interior heats through.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, meat):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, meat. 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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