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Hashed and Browned Potatoes

A dish of cooked potatoes sautéed with butter, flour, onion, and stock, then browned and served with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion 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 ↓

Hashed and Browned Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a frying pan.

  2. Add minced onion.

  3. Cook until the onion turns light straw color.

  4. Stir in flour until smooth and frothy.

  5. Gradually add soup stock.

  6. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  7. Add ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper.

  8. Cook for 5 minutes.

Combine and brown

  1. Season the cooked potatoes with the remaining salt and pepper.

  2. Stir the potatoes into the sauce.

  3. Cook for 5 minutes without stirring.

  4. Melt the remaining butter in another frying pan.

  5. Add the potatoes once the butter is hot.

  6. Cook for 15 minutes until browned thoroughly.

  7. Fold the potatoes over like an omelet.

  8. Transfer to a warm dish.

  9. Serve immediately, garnished with parsley.

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

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and, when browned, give it a crisp exterior and soft interior.
Butter
Fat that carries the browning in the pan and adds rich flavor.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce that coats the potatoes.
Soup stock
Liquid that, with the flour, forms the sauce and moistens the potatoes.
Minced onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor to the sauce as it cooks to light straw color.

The step that matters

Browning the potatoes in the second pan. Potatoes need enough time over steady heat in a hot, fat-coated pan to form a crust; cooking without disturbing them lets that crust develop, while stirring too often keeps them pale and soft.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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