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Browned Hash

A browned hash of minced meat, mashed potatoes, onion, parsley, and egg, cooked in fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Browned Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Mix the minced meat, mashed potatoes, salt, pepper, grated onion, chopped parsley, and egg thoroughly.

Cook

  1. Heat an omelet pan and add the fat.

  2. Spread the mixture evenly in the pan and reduce the heat.

  3. Cook slowly until the mixture browns evenly.

  4. Fold the mixture like an omelet.

Serve

  1. Garnish with parsley and serve with tomato catsup or hot tomato sauce.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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

Egg
Binds the meat and potato mixture so it holds together when folded.
Mashed potatoes
Add moisture and bulk, keeping the hash tender rather than dry.
Minced cooked meat
Provides the main savoury flavour and substance of the hash.
Grated onion
Adds aroma and savour that blends into the mixture as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until the mixture browns evenly. Low heat lets the bottom brown gradually through the Maillard reaction without scorching, while the interior sets. High heat can burn the surface before the egg and potato firm up, leaving the hash uneven and hard to fold.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, potato, pepper, parsley, egg, tomato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, potato, pepper, parsley, egg, tomato. 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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