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Meat Hash

A dish of finely chopped cold meat mixed with potatoes, seasoned with salt and pepper, cooked in butter or drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Meat Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cold meat finely, seasoning it with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  2. If using cold potatoes, chop them finely; if hot, mash them.

  3. Mix the meat and potatoes in a ratio of one third meat to two thirds potato.

Cook

  1. Place the mixture in a frying pan with a little water to moisten it and stir in a spoonful of butter or beef drippings.

  2. Heat slowly, stirring often, until warmed through.

  3. Cover and let it stand on a moderately hot part of the stove for twenty minutes.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, fold the hash like an omelet and dish it up.

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. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Provides the main protein and savory flavor of the hash.
Potatoes
Bulk and starch that bind the hash and give it a soft, moist texture.
Butter or beef drippings
Adds fat for richer flavor and helps the hash brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Heat slowly and let it stand covered. Gentle heating with stirring warms the mixture evenly without scorching, and the covered rest lets the moisture and starch soften the potato so the hash holds together.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits less well
  4. Mustardfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, butter. 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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