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Corn Beef Hash

A hash of minced corned beef and mashed potatoes, cooked with broth or gravy and butter, served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,798 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Corn Beef Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hash

  1. Mix the minced corned beef and mashed potatoes together, seasoning with pepper.

  2. Heat the broth or gravy in a frying pan until boiling.

  3. Stir in the meat and potato mixture, tossing and scraping it toward the center until it forms a soft heap.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot platter with triangles of fried bread around the base.

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 + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  4. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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 meaty flavor and bulk of the hash.
Mashed potatoes
Bind the meat together and add body and a soft, moist texture.
Broth or gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor while the hash heats through.

The step that matters

Stirring the meat and potato mixture in the hot liquid. Tossing and scraping the mixture toward the center keeps it moving so it heats evenly and does not scorch on the pan bottom, while the starch in the potatoes helps it gather into a soft heap.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Onionfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

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