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Browned Hash

A hash of chopped cooked meat and mashed potatoes, browned in fat and served with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Browned Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped meat, mashed potatoes, onion juice, boiling water, and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Shape the mixture into two small cakes.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a frying pan and add the fat.

  2. Once the fat is very hot, add the cakes and reduce the heat to brown them slowly.

  3. Alternatively, cook as one large cake and fold it like an omelet.

  4. Garnish with chopped parsley 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + potatotop 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

Cooked meat
Forms the bulk of the cake and provides the savoury flavour.
Mashed potatoes
Binds the mixture and keeps the cakes moist and tender.
Fat
Conducts heat into the cakes and helps create a browned crust.

The step that matters

Browning the cakes slowly. Once the fat is very hot, the cakes are added and the heat is reduced so the outside browns without burning before the inside heats through. Rushing this with high heat can scorch the surface while the centre stays cool.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, potato, 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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