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Vegetable Hash with Dropped Eggs

A baked hash of boiled salt meat, potatoes, beets, and turnips topped with dropped eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and turnip work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 562 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vegetable Hash with Dropped Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Mince the boiled salt meat finely.

  2. Chop the cold boiled potatoes, beets, and turnips finely.

Cook and bake

  1. In a skillet, bring the stock or meat liquor to a boil.

  2. Stir in the minced meat and chopped vegetables, along with a small piece of butter, pepper, and a little coarse sea salt.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a buttered baking dish and place it in a 400°F (200°C) oven to brown.

  4. Drop four or more eggs on top, depending on the number of servings.

  5. Sprinkle salt on the eggs, add shavings of butter, and serve.

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 + turniptop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  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

Boiled salt meat
Provides savory, salty flavor and meaty richness to the hash.
Cold boiled potatoes
Form the bulk of the hash and brown into a crisp, starchy base.
Beets
Add earthy sweetness and a deep color to the mixture.
Turnips
Add mild, slightly peppery bulk and texture to the hash.
Eggs
Set on top of the hash in the oven, adding richness and a soft, creamy yolk.

The step that matters

Baking the hash until browned. The mixture must be heated through and browned on top in a hot oven. Too little heat leaves it wet and pale, while the eggs need to set without overcooking.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Turnipthe original

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