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Foreign Hash

A hash of meat, onions, carrots, tomatoes, apples, and spices simmered in stock and thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Foreign Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Fry the onions, carrots, tomatoes, and apples in dripping or butter until tender.

  2. Add 1 to 2 quarts of stock according to the amount of meat.

Thicken and simmer

  1. Mix the flour with a little water to form a smooth paste.

  2. Stir the flour paste into the mixture along with salt, pepper, brown sugar, herbs, and garlic.

  3. Let it boil together for three hours.

  4. Add the meat to the saucepan and stir well.

  5. Incorporate the jam and cook for an additional ten minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve very 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.

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

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

  2. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Cold joint of meat
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender and flavourful as it simmers in the stock.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry, building the savoury base of the hash.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, cohesive sauce when mixed with water first.
Apples
Add sweetness and a mild acidity that balances the savoury meat and stock.
Tomatoes
Contribute acidity and body, breaking down into the sauce as they cook.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body, softening during frying and simmering.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour into a smooth paste before adding it. Flour dropped directly into hot liquid clumps as its starch grains swell unevenly. Mixing it with a little cold water first separates the grains so they disperse and thicken the sauce evenly.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, onion, carrot, tomato, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, onion, carrot, tomato, butter, flour, pepper. 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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