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Bowling Hash

A stew of cooked salt beef or pork, potatoes, onion, and spices simmered in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bowling Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and wash the potatoes, then cut them into small cubes.

  2. Trim the fat and gristle from the meat and cut it into small cubes.

  3. Chop the onion finely.

Make the gravy

  1. In a pan, melt the dripping over medium heat until it releases a blue vapor.

  2. Stir in the flour until it becomes a rich brown.

  3. Add the water, onion, potatoes, meat, mixed herbs, and cloves.

  4. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

  5. Simmer for 25 minutes without stirring the potatoes.

Serve

  1. Remove the cloves, pile the meat and potatoes on a dish, and pour the gravy around before serving.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  4. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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

Cooked salt beef or pork
Provides the savory meat that flavors the dish and the gravy.
Potatoes
Soften during simmering and thicken the dish while holding their shape in cubes.
Flour
Browned in the dripping, it thickens the gravy and adds toasty flavor.
Dripping
Fat that carries flavor and helps the flour brown evenly.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the flour. Cooking the flour in hot fat until rich brown develops nutty, toasted flavor and color. Stopping too early leaves a raw, pasty taste, while burning gives bitterness.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, onion, flour, 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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