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Hash on Toast

A savory hash of potatoes and meat served over toast, finished with butter, stock, and Worcestershire sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Hash on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

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

  2. Add the flour and stir to make a roux, cooking until golden.

  3. Gradually whisk in the stock or water, stirring until thickened.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the diced meat, potatoes, salt, and pepper; heat through.

  2. Stir in Worcestershire sauce.

  3. Serve the hash over toast and garnish with parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Fat that cooks with the flour to form the roux and adds richness.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks in the roux.
Stock or water
Liquid that becomes the body of the sauce once thickened.
Cooked meat
Provides the savory main body of the hash.
Cooked potatoes
Adds starchy bulk and soft texture to the hash.

The step that matters

Cooking the roux until golden. Cooking flour in fat until golden removes raw starch taste and builds nutty flavor. Adding stock too early or cooking it too little can leave a pasty, floury sauce, so the roux should be cooked before the liquid goes in and stirred to prevent lumps.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, butter, flour, sauce, parsley. 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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