Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
To Hash Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the leftover roast beef into neat slices.
Cut the bones short and score them; season with pepper and salt.
Broil the bones over a clear fire.
In a saucepan, combine the trimmings, onions, and water; simmer for 1 hour without boiling fast.
Strain the liquid into a basin.
Make the hash
Dust the beef with flour and place it in a saucepan.
Add the strained liquid and mix well.
Heat just until the flour is cooked, then stir in walnut liquor and mushroom catsup.
Chop the gherkins and add them along with seasoning.
Serve
Serve the hash on a dish and place the bones on top.
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.
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Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,232 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,092 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,971 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,626 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together68,474 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
- Leftover roast beef
- Forms the body of the hash, providing the meat that is sliced and simmered in the sauce.
- Flour
- Dusted onto the beef and cooked to thicken the strained liquid into a sauce.
- Onions
- Simmered with the trimmings and water to build a savoury, sweet base for the liquid.
- Walnut liquor
- Added at the end to contribute a concentrated, deep aroma to the sauce.
- Mushroom catsup
- Adds savoury, umami depth to the sauce stirred in near the end.
The step that matters
Heat just until the flour is cooked. Flour must be heated long enough to cook out its raw starch taste and thicken the liquid, but prolonged boiling can break down starch thickening, so the sauce should be heated gently and only until thickened.
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, flour, mushroom, pepper):
- Sesamefits better
- Beansfits better
- Lentilsfits better
- Walnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, flour, mushroom, 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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