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Hash on Toast

A hash of diced meat and potatoes served on toast, seasoned with Worcestershire sauce, flour, salt, pepper, and garnished with parsley.

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

  1. In a pan, heat the fat over medium heat.

  2. Add the diced meat and potatoes, and cook until heated through.

  3. Stir in the water or stock, Worcestershire sauce, flour, salt, and pepper.

  4. Cook until the mixture thickens slightly.

  5. Serve the hash on slices of toast.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Diced meat
Provides the main savory bulk and flavor of the hash.
Diced potatoes
Add body and starch that help bind the hash and give it substance.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the mixture becomes slightly saucy rather than watery.
Fat
Carries heat evenly through the pan and adds richness to the hash.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture thickens slightly. Flour needs enough heat and time to hydrate and swell in the liquid. Stopping early leaves the hash thin and floury-tasting, while over-reducing can make it pasty.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Potatothe original

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