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Salt Beef Hash

A hash made with salt beef, onions, potatoes, carrots, butter, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Salt Beef Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the beef

  1. Boil the salt beef until tender.

  2. Chop the boiled salt beef into pieces.

Make the hash

  1. Slice the onions.

  2. Fry the sliced onions in butter until nicely browned.

  3. Add the chopped meat, boiled and sliced potatoes, chopped carrots, salt, pepper, and enough stock to moisten.

  4. Simmer gently for twenty minutes.

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

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

  2. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Salt beef
Provides the main savoury, meaty flavour and the bulk of the hash.
Onions
Browning in butter builds sweetness and deep savoury flavour.
Potatoes
Starch that softens during simmering and helps bind the hash together.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and a softer texture to the mixture.
Butter
Fat that carries the onion browning and adds rich flavour.

The step that matters

Fry the sliced onions in butter until nicely browned. Onions need enough time over moderate heat for their sugars to caramelise and develop colour and flavour. Pale, undercooked onions leave the hash tasting flat, while over-high heat can scorch the butter and turn them bitter.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Carrotthe original
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

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