Name: Vegetable Hash
Ingredients: 1 carrot, cooked and chopped; 1 blood beet, cooked and chopped; 2 turnips, cooked and chopped; 2 quarts finely sliced potatoes; 1 onion, cooked and chopped; 1 stalk of celery, cooked and chopped; 1 sprig of parsley; gravy of drawn butter and cream

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Vegetable Hash

Ingredients

1 carrot, cooked and chopped
1 blood beet, cooked and chopped
2 turnips, cooked and chopped
2 quarts finely sliced potatoes
1 onion, cooked and chopped
1 stalk of celery, cooked and chopped
1 sprig of parsley
gravy of drawn butter and cream

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.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a stew pan, combine the carrot, blood beet, turnips, potatoes, onion, celery, and parsley.
Cover the pan tightly and place it in the oven.

Finish and serve

Once heated through, pour over the gravy made from drawn butter and cream.
Stir together and serve.

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.

Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,418 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Form the bulk of the hash and hold its body as they heat through.
Turnips: Add firm texture and mild sweetness as they soften.
Blood beet: Adds earthy sweetness and a deep red colour to the hash.
Carrot: Adds sweetness and a softer, tender texture to the mix.
Butter and cream gravy: Adds richness and moisture that coats the vegetables.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, potato, celery, parsley, butter, cream):

Leekfits better
Parsnipfits better
Chivefits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, potato, celery, parsley, butter, cream. 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.