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Corn-beef Hash

A hash of chopped corned beef, boiled potatoes, butter, and seasonings, cooked until a crust forms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Corn-beef Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the corned beef fine, discarding any hard gristle.

  2. Boil the potatoes with their skins on, then chop them not too fine once cooled.

Cook

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add a few spoonfuls of boiling water, then mix in the chopped meat and potatoes.

  3. Season with a little salt and plenty of pepper, and heat the mixture, stirring occasionally without mashing the potatoes.

  4. Let it sit for 10 to 15 minutes until a crust forms at the bottom.

  5. Shape the mixture into a neat loaf.

  6. Loosen it from the pan with a cake turner, then invert onto a warm platter to 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.

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

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

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Corned beef
Provides the main meat flavor and the bulk of the hash's savory base.
Potatoes
Add starchy body and moisture that bind the hash while keeping it tender.
Butter
Adds richness and helps form a browned crust on the bottom of the pan.

The step that matters

Letting the crust form undisturbed. Stirring after the mixture rests breaks the forming crust and mashes the potatoes. Resting over medium heat lets starch and proteins at the pan surface brown, which gives the hash its crisp base and holds the loaf together when it is inverted.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, meat, butter, pepper, tomato, celery):

  1. Carrotfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, meat, butter, pepper, tomato, celery. 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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