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Corned Beef Hash

A hash of canned corned beef, onions, and potatoes, seasoned and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Corned Beef Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hash

  1. Chop the canned corned beef and mix with sliced onions.

  2. Mash the mixture with freshly boiled potatoes, using two parts potatoes to one part meat.

  3. Season with pepper and dry mustard if desired.

Fry

  1. Melt a little pork fat in a frying pan.

  2. Add the hash to the pan and cook until nearly dry and a brown crust forms.

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 + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

Canned corned beef
Provides the main savoury meat flavour and body of the hash.
Freshly boiled potatoes
Supply starch and bulk that bind the mixture and help it crisp when fried.
Sliced onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften and brown in the pan.
Pork fat
Conducts heat and adds richness, helping the hash brown and form a crust.

The step that matters

Cook until nearly dry and a brown crust forms. Moisture from the potatoes and onions must cook off so the surface can brown rather than steam. Leaving the hash in the pan too long without stirring or pressing can scorch it, so cook over steady heat until a crisp crust develops.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, potato, pepper, pork):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, potato, pepper, pork. 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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