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Corn-beef Hash

A hash of finely chopped corned beef, potatoes, butter, and seasonings, cooked until a crust forms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Corn-beef Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the corned beef finely, discarding any hard gristle.

  2. Boil the potatoes with their skins on, then let them cool before chopping them into small pieces.

Make the hash

  1. In a saucepan, melt a lump of butter about the size of an egg.

  2. Add a few spoonfuls of boiling water to the butter.

  3. When the mixture is bubbling, mix in the chopped meat and potatoes.

  4. Season with a little coarse sea salt and plenty of black pepper.

  5. Heat the mixture, stirring occasionally without mashing the potatoes.

  6. Let it sit for 10 to 15 minutes until a crust forms at the bottom.

  7. Shape the mixture into a neat loaf.

  8. Loosen the loaf from the pan with a spatula.

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Corned beef
Provides the savoury meat base and chewy texture of the hash.
Potatoes
Supply starch and body that bind the hash together as they cook.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the hash brown and release from the pan.

The step that matters

Let it sit until a crust forms at the bottom. Undisturbed cooking lets the mixture form a browned crust through the Maillard reaction. Stirring or mashing too often breaks up the potatoes and prevents that crust from forming, so the loaf will not hold its shape.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, 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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