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Norman Hash

A savory hash of fried onions, wine, broth, and beef.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Norman Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Make the onion gravy

  1. Peel and fry the button onions in butter until lightly browned.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook until the mixture is a deep amber shade.

  3. Pour in the red wine and boiling broth or water.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and lemon pickle, catsup, or lemon juice, then boil until the onions are tender.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cut the leftover beef into small slices and arrange in a clean saucepan.

  2. Pour the gravy and onions over the beef and let it sit to absorb the flavor.

  3. Heat the hash near the fire until thoroughly hot, then serve immediately without boiling.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Red wine + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,017 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Button onions
Provide the main body and sweetness as they soften and release their flavor into the gravy.
Butter
Fat for frying the onions, promoting gentle browning and rich flavor.
Flour
Thickens the gravy and, cooked to amber, adds color and toasted flavor.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth to the gravy, along with liquid for simmering.
Leftover roast or boiled beef
The main protein, which gently absorbs the flavor of the gravy.

The step that matters

Heat the hash without boiling. Boiling the meat after it has been added toughens its proteins and makes it dry and stringy, so it should only be heated through gently.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Grapefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, flour, red wine, pepper, beef. 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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