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Hash Made of Cold Cooked Meat

A hash made from finely minced cold cooked meat, onions, and optional mushrooms, simmered in a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Hash Made of Cold Cooked Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove all fat, skin, and gristle from the cold cooked meat.

  2. Finely mince the meat by hand or using a fine-bladed sausage machine.

Make the sauce

  1. Peel and mince the onion and mushroom, then fry them in butter until lightly browned.

  2. Sprinkle in the flour and continue frying until it turns light coffee brown.

  3. Gradually add the stock or water to achieve a sauce thickness similar to cream.

  4. Boil the sauce well.

Combine and serve

  1. Let it cool slightly before mixing in the minced meat.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then reheat before serving.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold cooked meat
Forms the bulk of the hash, providing the main texture and flavour.
Butter or dripping
Fat for frying the onion and mushroom, carrying flavour and aiding browning.
Flour
Browns in the fat and thickens the stock into a sauce that binds the meat.
Stock or water
Liquid that hydrates the flour and forms the sauce, adding moisture to the hash.
Onion
Softens and browns in the fat, adding sweetness and savoury depth.

The step that matters

Frying the flour until light coffee brown. Cooking the flour in fat until it browns develops a nutty flavour and removes raw starch taste. Browning too far or too fast can scorch it and make the sauce bitter, so keep the heat moderate and stir constantly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, ham, lamb, mushroom, 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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