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Hashed Beef

A simple dish of sliced roast beef cooked with flour, salt, pepper, and water or broth, optionally flavored with onions, parsley, and condiments.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Hashed Beef

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Hashed Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the roast beef into thin slices, using a small amount of fat.

  2. Sprinkle the flour, salt, and pepper over the meat.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the meat in a stewpan and moisten with water or broth.

  2. Add coloring for a nice brown color if desired.

  3. Warm gently over low heat, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes.

  4. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary, then serve hot.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Roast beef
Forms the main body of the hash, and its texture and flavor carry the dish.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light gravy that clings to the meat.
Water or light broth
Moistens the meat and forms the liquid that carries flavor during gentle heating.

The step that matters

Warm gently over low heat, stirring occasionally. The beef is already cooked, so high heat or long boiling toughens and dries it. Gentle heat warms it through while keeping it tender. Stirring spreads the flour evenly so the gravy stays smooth instead of lumpy.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, pepper, parsley, sauce, vinegar, mushroom):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, pepper, parsley, sauce, vinegar, mushroom. 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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