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Boston Brown Hash for Breakfast

A baked hash of steak remnants, mashed potatoes, stale bread crumbs, butter, gravy, and milk, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Boston Brown Hash for Breakfast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Chop the remnants of steak, roast, or stew very fine.

Assemble

  1. Layer mashed potatoes in the bottom of a deep buttered dish.

  2. Add a layer of the chopped meat, then a layer of stale bread crumbs.

  3. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and dot the top with bits of butter.

  4. Moisten with 1 cup of gravy and cover with another layer of potatoes.

  5. Smooth the top with a knife dipped in milk.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes until well-browned.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Forms the bulk of the layers and gives a soft, starchy body to the dish.
Remnants of steak, roast, or stew
Supplies the meat flavour and savoury substance of the hash.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the gravy and help the layers hold together while browning.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown in the oven.
Gravy
Moistens the layers so the dish stays tender rather than dry as it bakes.

The step that matters

Moistening with gravy. Too little gravy leaves the layers dry after baking, while too much makes the dish soggy. The bread crumbs and potatoes absorb the liquid as they heat, so the measured amount matters.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, butter, milk. 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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