Skip to main content
Main

To Hash Beef

A savory beef hash made by simmering beef with herbs, onions, and wine, then thickening the gravy with butter, flour, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

To Hash Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Hang raw beef until tender, then cut into thin slices.

  2. Place slices in a saucepan with enough water to cover them, sweet herbs, onion, pepper, and salt.

  3. Cover and simmer until tender.

Make the gravy

  1. Add port wine and shallot vinegar, then warm the mixture.

  2. Strain the gravy through a fine sieve to remove herbs and vegetables.

  3. Return the gravy to the saucepan with the beef and thicken with butter kneaded in flour and brown sugar.

Finish the hash

  1. If using cooked meat, mince shallot and onion, then fry in butter.

  2. Add flour, a little gravy, and walnut liquor or ketchup, and bring to a boil.

  3. Add the thin slices of beef and heat through without boiling.

  4. Optionally, add sliced potatoes and onions.

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. 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. Port wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Raw beef
Provides the main meat; long hanging and simmering make it tender enough to slice thin.
Flour
Thickens the gravy by swelling with liquid, giving the sauce body.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the thickening and to the frying of the shallot and onion.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the gravy.
Shalot vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the gravy and balances the richness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a hint of caramel flavor to the gravy.

The step that matters

Heat through without boiling. Once the thin beef slices go in, boiling toughens the meat and can make the gravy break or thicken unevenly, so keep it at a gentle heat.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, port wine, vinegar, butter, flour, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, port wine, vinegar, butter, flour, sugar. 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 beef hash recipes

Corned 114Cold 44with Spaghetti 5Salt 3 See all 112 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes