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Baked Hash

A baked dish of cornmeal mush layered with browned onion, meat, and tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Baked Hash

Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Hash

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the mush

  1. Combine cornmeal, water, and 1½ teaspoons salt in a pot.

  2. Cook for 45 minutes to make a mush.

Make the meat filling

  1. Brown the onion in the fat in a skillet.

  2. Add the chopped meat, salt, pepper, and tomatoes, then mix well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease a baking dish.

  2. Spread a layer of cornmeal mush in the dish.

  3. Add the seasoned meat mixture.

  4. Cover with more cornmeal mush.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes or until 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

  5. Meat + tomatotop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,438 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Cooked into a mush that forms the soft, sliceable layers around the filling.
Chopped meat
Provides the savory, protein-rich filling that gives the dish its body.
Onion
Softened and browned in fat to add sweetness and aroma to the filling.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that season and loosen the meat filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the cornmeal mush. Cornmeal must cook long enough to gelatinize its starch fully; under-cooked mush stays gritty and will not set firmly into layers. Stirring prevents scorching and lumps on the pot bottom.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, tomato, 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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