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Fish Hash

A dish of finely chopped leftover fish and cold potatoes cooked in lard with boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and potato work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 134 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Fish Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the leftover fish finely, ensuring no bones remain.

  2. Chop the cold potatoes finely.

  3. Mix the chopped fish and potatoes together.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a little lard in a frying pan.

  2. Add the mixture and ½ cup of boiling water to the pan.

  3. Heat slowly, stirring often, until heated through.

  4. Spread the mixture smoothly in the pan and brown it carefully.

  5. When browned, fold it like an omelet and serve.

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. Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold potatoes
Provide starch and bulk that hold the hash together while it browns.
Lard
Adds fat for frying, helping the mixture brown and crisp on the surface.

The step that matters

Spread the mixture smoothly and brown it carefully. A thin, even layer in the hot fat lets the surface brown evenly rather than steam. Browning builds flavour, while uneven or overly thick areas can burn or stay soft.

“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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