Skip to main content
Main

Hashed Beef

A savory beef hash made with sliced beef, onions, stock, and a butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Hashed Beef

Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hashed Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock base

  1. Combine the beef trimmings, bones, sliced onions, vinegar, and stock in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer for 1 hour.

  3. Strain the mixture and skim off the fat.

Thicken and finish the hash

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then stir in the flour and cook for 2-3 minutes.

  2. Add the strained gravy to the butter and flour mixture, stirring until it boils.

  3. Stir in a little catsup and add the sliced beef. Simmer until heated through, but do not boil.

Prepare the bones

  1. If serving the bones, score and season them with pepper and salt.

  2. Place the bones in a tin pan with small bits of butter.

  3. Heat the bones in a Dutch oven, then broil on a gridiron until browned.

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

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the meat for the hash, which is cooked gently so it stays tender.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth to the stock as it simmers.
Flour
Cooked with butter, it thickens the strained gravy into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the roux and helps the bones brown.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the gravy that carries the flavor of the dish.

The step that matters

Simmer the sliced beef without boiling. Boiling toughens meat proteins and makes them dry and stringy, so the beef should only be heated gently until warm through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, vinegar, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, vinegar, 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.

More hashed beef recipes

on Toast 14 See all 20 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes