Skip to main content
Main

Hashed Beef

A savory beef hash with onions, vinegar, stock, and a butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Make the gravy

  1. Combine beef trimmings, bones, sliced onions, vinegar, and stock in a saucepan. Simmer for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the mixture and skim off the fat.

Thicken and finish

  1. Melt the butter in a clean saucepan. Stir in the flour and cook for 2–3 minutes.

  2. Add the strained gravy to the butter‑flour mixture. Stir until it boils.

  3. Add a little catsup and the sliced beef. Simmer until heated through, but do not boil.

Serve the bones

  1. If serving the bones, score and season them with pepper and salt. Place them in a tin pan with small bits of butter.

  2. Heat the bones in a Dutch oven, then broil on a gridiron until browned.

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Beef
Gives the dish its meaty flavour and forms the sliced meat served in the gravy.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the stock as it simmers.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the butter and gravy mixture so it coats the beef.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and helps form the thickened base.

The step that matters

Keep the beef below a boil. Simmering only gently keeps thin slices of beef tender and stops them toughening, while boiling would make the meat firm and dry.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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

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