Name: Cream Hash
Ingredients: mutton, veal, or beef (chopped finely); salt pork drippings; cream or milk; cornstarch; butter; slices of well-browned toast; hot water

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the chopped meat in salt pork drippings for a few minutes.
Remove from heat and make a rich cream gravy in the same pan using cream or thickened milk.
Pour half of the gravy into a pan, thin it with hot water, and dip in the toast slices.
Lay the moistened toast on a flat dish and keep warm.
Add the minced meat to the thick gravy and cook for five minutes.
Spread the meat mixture over the toast 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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Mutton + porktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,239 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).
Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,933 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Pork + creamtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,093 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,781 recipes

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