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Hash

A stew of sliced cold meat, vegetables, and bacon rind simmered in broth, thickened with flour, and flavored with catsup, anchovy sauce, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Cut the meat into slices and trim off any hard or burnt pieces.

  2. Place the meat, bones, bacon rind, carrot, turnip, parsley, herbs, pepper, salt, and cold water in a saucepan.

  3. Bring to a boil and let simmer for at least an hour.

Make the gravy

  1. Slice the onion into rings and fry in dripping until brown.

  2. Mix the flour with 1 pint of the broth and pour it into the saucepan.

  3. Boil and thicken the mixture.

  4. Add catsup or vinegar, anchovy sauce, and nutmeg for flavor.

  5. Strain the gravy, return it to the saucepan, and warm the meat in it without boiling.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth gravy as it heats.
Dripping
Fries the onion rings to brown them and adds rich fat flavor.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma when browned in fat.
Catsup or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the gravy.
Cold meat
Provides the main protein and savory flavor, gently warmed in the gravy.

The step that matters

Warm the meat without boiling. Boiling toughens cooked meat and can make it dry and stringy, so the meat should only be heated gently in the strained gravy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, carrot, turnip, parsley, pepper, flour, vinegar):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, carrot, turnip, parsley, pepper, flour, vinegar. 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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