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To Hash Beep

A stew of sliced raw meat simmered with herbs, onion, wine, vinegar, and thickened with butter, flour, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Port wine and vinegar work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 598 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

To Hash Beep

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Hang the raw meat until tender.

  2. Cut the meat into thin slices.

Make the gravy

  1. Place the slices in a saucepan with enough water to cover them, sweet herbs, onion, pepper, and salt.

  2. Cover and simmer until the meat is tender.

  3. Add port wine and shallot vinegar.

  4. Warm the mixture.

  5. Strain the gravy through a fine sieve to remove herbs and vegetables.

  6. Return the gravy to the saucepan with the meat.

  7. Thicken the gravy with butter kneaded in flour and brown sugar.

Finish the hash

  1. If using cooked meat, sauté shallot and onion in butter.

  2. Add flour, gravy, and walnut liquor or ketchup.

  3. Once boiling, add the thinly sliced beef.

  4. Heat through without boiling.

  5. Add sliced potatoes and onions if desired.

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. Port wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Raw meat
Long simmering in water breaks down tough fibers, making the beef tender and easy to slice.
Port wine
Adds depth, mild sweetness and fruity aroma to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch swells when heated with liquid and fat.
Butter
Adds richness and mouthfeel, and carries flavor through the gravy.
Onion
Contributes savory aroma and body to the gravy as it cooks down.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and mild caramel notes that balance the savory gravy.

The step that matters

Heat through without boiling. Boiling toughens already-cooked meat by driving out its juices, and a flour-thickened gravy can turn lumpy or thin when pushed too hard.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, port wine, vinegar, butter, flour, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, port wine, vinegar, butter, flour, sugar. 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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