Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Pork, Hashed
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the pork into small slices and sprinkle with salt and a little cayenne pepper.
Make the sauce
In a saucepan, combine butter, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, lemon juice, and mustard, then heat until hot.
Cook the hash
Add the pork slices to the saucepan and cook for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Do not let the sauce boil.
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.
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Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,099 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,430 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,816 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Pork + mustardtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,445 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
- Pork
- Provides the main meaty body and savory flavor of the hash.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a silky moisture to the sauce that coats the meat.
- Worcestershire sauce
- Adds savory depth and salty, tangy complexity to the sauce.
- Ketchup
- Contributes sweetness and acidity that balance the savory and spicy notes.
- Prepared mustard
- Adds sharp, pungent flavor that cuts through the richness of the butter.
- Lemon juice
- Brightens the sauce with acidity, lifting the overall flavor.
The step that matters
Keep the sauce from boiling. Boiling a butter-based sauce can make the fat separate and turn greasy, and high heat toughens and dries the pork. Gentle heat keeps the sauce smooth and the meat tender while it simmers together.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, butter, sauce, ketchup, mustard, pepper):
- Lemonthe original
- Avocadofits about as well
- Limefits about as well
- Red currantfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, sauce, ketchup, mustard, 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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