Name: Beef Hash
Ingredients: cold roast or boiled beef; cold chopped potatoes; butter or water (for moisture); a little sage; onion (to taste); pepper (to taste); celery or celery salt (to taste)

Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Beef Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Chop or grind the cold roast or boiled beef.
In a bowl, combine the beef with cold chopped potatoes, sage, onion, pepper, and celery or celery salt.
Add enough butter or water to moisten the mixture.
Heat all ingredients together in a pan until hot.
Serve hot with 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.

Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Sage + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together723 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,047 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef: Provides the main body and savory flavor of the hash.
Potatoes: Add starchy bulk that holds the hash together and helps it brown when heated.
Butter or water: Adds moisture so the mixture heats evenly and does not dry out.

Swap the sage

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

Parsleyfits better
Thymefits better
Garlicfits better
Sagethe original

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