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To Hash Beef

A stew of beef, broth, onion, ketchup, and flour, thickened and served with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and saffron work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 781 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Hash Beef

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the beef in a pot with the broth or gravy.

  2. Add the fried onion, pepper, salt, and ketchup.

  3. Simmer for about 10 minutes.

  4. In a cup, mix the flour with a little of the gravy. Pour the flour mixture into the pot to thicken the stew.

  5. Serve with snippets of toast.

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. Pepper + saffrontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + saffrontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,042 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main substance and meaty texture of the hash.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a thicker, cohesive stew.
Broth or gravy
Supplies the cooking liquid that carries the flavor and moisture of the stew.

The step that matters

Adding the flour mixture. Flour must be mixed with a little cold or cool liquid first, then stirred into the hot stew, so it disperses evenly. Added dry or in lumps, it clumps and leaves a grainy texture instead of a smooth thickened sauce.

Swap the saffron

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

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Saffronthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, pepper, ketchup, flour, port wine. 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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