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Hashed Beef

A dish of diced under‑cooked beef cooked with herbs, flour, and gravy, served with toast or poached eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Hashed Beef

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 ↓

Hashed Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat into dice and sprinkle with flour and herbs.

Make the hash

  1. Heat the butter in a pan and fry the meat for 2-3 minutes along with minced onion.

  2. Add the gravy and Liebig Company's Extract of Meat, and bring to a boil to cook the flour.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with toast cut into squares and spread lightly with Liebig Company's Extract of Meat, or with poached eggs.

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

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Ketchup + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 meaty bulk and chewy texture of the hash.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it comes to a boil, giving the hash body.
Butter
Adds fat for frying the meat and carries savory flavor.
Gravy or water
Supplies the liquid that moistens the meat and forms the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the savory flavors.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds a deep, savory umami note to the sauce.

The step that matters

Bringing the gravy to a boil to cook the flour. Flour must be fully heated to cook out its raw, pasty taste and to thicken smoothly. Adding liquid to flour can cause lumps, so stir well while the sauce comes to a boil.

“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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