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Hashed Brown Potatoes

A dish of finely chopped boiled potatoes fried with butter, cream, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Hashed Brown Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely chop the cold boiled potatoes and season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of cream for each potato and mix well.

Cook

  1. Heat 1 tablespoon of butter in an omelet pan until hot.

  2. Add the potato mixture to the pan, spreading it about 1 inch thick and patting it down smooth.

  3. Cook slowly until the bottom is nicely browned.

  4. Fold over one half, cook for a moment longer, then turn out onto a plate like an omelet.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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

Cold boiled potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish, crisping on the outside while staying soft within.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness so the potato mixture binds and stays tender.
Butter
Fat that conducts heat in the pan and promotes browning on the bottom.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until the bottom is nicely browned. Gentle heat lets the starch dry and brown evenly before the potato softens or burns. Rushing it over high heat tends to scorch the bottom while the centre stays raw.

“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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