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Coened Beef Hash

A skillet dish of cooked beef, potatoes, onions, and butter, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Coened Beef Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the onions

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter and brown the sliced onions until tender.

Make the hash

  1. Add the chopped beef and potatoes to the skillet.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Pour in enough water to moisten the mixture.

  4. Stir in the chopped red pepper if using.

  5. Cook until heated through and well combined.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked beef
Provides the savory meat base and chewy texture of the hash.
Potatoes
Starch adds body and bulk, and helps the hash hold together and brown.
Onions
Slow browning develops sweetness and a deep savory flavor.
Butter
Fat carries flavor and helps the onions and potatoes brown.

The step that matters

Brown the onions until tender. Cooking sliced onions in butter until they turn golden develops sweetness through browning, which builds the hash's savory base. Pale, under-browned onions taste flat, while over-high heat can scorch the butter and make them bitter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, butter, pepper):

  1. Onionthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, butter, pepper. 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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