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French Hash

A baked hash of potatoes, meat, egg, butter, lemon, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

French Hash

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make and bake the roll

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped potatoes and meat with the beaten egg, salt, pepper, butter, lemon juice, and enough cream to moisten.

  2. Form the mixture into a roll.

  3. Place the roll on a biscuit pan and bake for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with drawn butter poured around the roll.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the bulk and starch that hold the hash together as it bakes.
Cold meat
Supplies the main savoury flavour and substance of the dish.
Beaten egg
Acts as a binder that sets during baking and helps hold the roll together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and a tender texture.
Cream or rich milk
Moistens the mixture so it binds and does not dry out in the oven.

The step that matters

Moistening the mixture. Enough cream must be added to make the mixture hold together. Too little leaves it crumbly and dry, while the egg sets as it bakes to bind the roll.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, meat, egg, pepper, 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.

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