Skip to main content
Main

Hashed Beef

A dish of sliced cold roast beef sautéed with onion, flour, stock, and pickles, served with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Hashed Beef

Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hashed Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove skin and gristle from the sliced cold roast beef.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion and flour, stirring until browned but not burned.

  3. Gradually stir in the stock and add salt; let it boil until thick.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the chopped pickles and beef slices, heating through.

  2. Serve with slices 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast beef
Provides the meat, which is gently heated through in the thickened sauce.
Flour
Browned with the onion and thickens the stock into a smooth sauce.
Onion
Softens and browns in the butter, adding sweetness and savory depth to the sauce.
Butter
Cooks the onion and carries flavor, giving the sauce richness.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into the sauce.
Hot green pickles
Add sharp acidity and a spicy bite that cuts through the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the onion and flour. Cooking the flour until it is lightly browned, without burning, gives the sauce a nutty flavor and color. Burnt flour turns bitter, and undercooked flour leaves a raw starchy taste, so heat must be kept moderate and the mixture stirred constantly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour. 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.

More hashed beef recipes

on Toast 14 See all 20 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes