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School Op Cookery Hash

A hash of cold meat, onions, and gravy made with stock or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

School Op Cookery Hash

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meat

  1. Roll the cold meat in flour and place it between two plates.

Make the gravy

  1. Slice the scalded onions and fry them until brown in the hot dripping.

  2. Add the flour to the onions and stir until brown.

  3. Gradually pour in the stock or water, stirring until it boils and season with salt and pepper.

Heat and finish

  1. Heat the meat gently in the oven at 400°F (200°C) or over boiling water without allowing it to frizzle.

  2. Add the meat to the gravy and simmer gently for five 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 + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Is the main protein, warmed through gently so it stays tender rather than toughening.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they brown in the dripping.
Flour
Browns with the fat and thickens the stock into a gravy.
Dripping
Carries the heat for frying the onions and adds rich flavour.
Stock or water
Makes up the liquid that becomes the gravy, adding moisture.

The step that matters

Heat the meat gently. High heat makes meat proteins tighten and dry out, so warming it slowly keeps it moist and stops it frizzling at the edges.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, 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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