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Hash

A baked hash of shredded meat, mushrooms, onions, and herbs, topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Hash

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Pare the meat off the bones into finely shredded slices, cutting with the grain.

  3. In a bowl, mix flour, salt, pepper, mace, and nutmeg.

Layer the dish

  1. In a pie dish, layer the shredded mushroom and onion at the bottom.

  2. Dip each piece of meat in the flour mixture and layer in the pie dish.

  3. When half full, add bay leaves, mixed herbs, and bruised cloves.

  4. Fill the dish three-quarters full, then add Worcestershire sauce and stock.

Bake

  1. Sprinkle bread crumbs over the top, cover with kitchen paper, and bake for 4 hours.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat from bones
Forms the main body of the dish and gives its rich, savoury flavour.
Flour
Dusted onto the meat, it helps thicken the stock into a rich, lightly bound gravy.
Stock
Provides the liquid that moistens the layers during the long, slow bake.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth as it softens into the base of the dish.
Bread crumbs
Form a topping that adds texture and helps protect the layers below.

The step that matters

Covering the dish with kitchen paper. The long, slow bake needs steady moisture; the cover traps steam so the meat becomes tender rather than drying out at the surface.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, pepper, mace, mushroom, onion, meat, clove):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, mace, mushroom, onion, meat, clove. 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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