Skip to main content
Main

Hash

A savory hash of sliced mutton or beef simmered in a seasoned gravy with onions and herbs, topped with fried bread.

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

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the onion cut into rings and the flour in the dripping until browned.

  2. Gradually add the stock and bring to a boil.

  3. Add salt, skim thoroughly, then add herbs, ketchup, and pepper.

  4. Simmer the sauce for 40 minutes, then strain into a clean saucepan.

Prepare and heat the meat

  1. Cut the meat into thin slices, removing all fat, gristle, and skin.

  2. Add the meat to the sauce and reheat thoroughly for about 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Place the meat in the center of a hot dish, pour the sauce over, and garnish with fried bread.

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

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

  2. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked mutton or beef
Provides the main body of the dish; reheating in the sauce keeps it moist and tender.
Flour
Browned with the dripping and onion, it thickens the stock into a smooth sauce.
Dripping
Carries the browning of the onion and flour, adding richness and savoury flavour.
Onion
Browned in the fat, it adds sweetness and savoury depth to the sauce.
Second stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving body and meaty flavour.

The step that matters

Gradually add the stock. Adding stock slowly to the browned flour and fat lets the starch disperse evenly, preventing lumps and giving a smooth, well-thickened sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, flour, bread, pepper, ketchup):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, bread, pepper, ketchup. 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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes