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Hash

Hash is a dish of cold meat slices simmered in gravy with vegetables, herbs, and ketchup, served with fried bread triangles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the best slices of cold meat for the hash.

  2. Remove all scraps of meat from the bone.

Make the gravy

  1. Make gravy by simmering bones, carrot, turnip, onion, herbs, pepper, and salt in water for 15 minutes.

  2. Strain the gravy and return it to the saucepan, discarding the bones.

Coat and heat

  1. Mix flour, salt, and pepper on a plate, and coat each slice of meat on both sides.

  2. Add the coated meat slices to the gravy and heat until just boiling, avoiding boiling to keep the meat tender.

  3. Stir in ketchup or Harvey's sauce before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve the meat slices on a dish, pour gravy over, and decorate with fried bread triangles.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat slices
Provides the main body of the dish, which is gently reheated in the gravy.
Flour
Coats the meat and thickens the gravy as it is heated.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the gravy as it simmers.
Turnip
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the gravy as it simmers.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the gravy as it simmers.

The step that matters

Heat until just boiling, not boiling. Holding the gravy just below a rolling boil keeps the meat tender. Vigorous boiling toughens meat proteins and can make the slices dry and stringy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, carrot, turnip, flour, pepper, ketchup, bread):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, carrot, turnip, flour, pepper, ketchup, bread. 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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