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Hash

Hash is a baked dish of chopped cooked beef, pork, potatoes, and onion seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Hash

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the beef, pork, potatoes, and onion. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Add enough water to moisten the mixture.

Bake

  1. Transfer to a deep baking pan and top with lumps of butter or drippings.

  2. Bake for about 1.5 hours without stirring.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

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

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

  3. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked beef
Provides the main meaty body and savory flavor of the hash.
Cooked pork
Adds more meat flavor and richness to the hash.
Cold boiled potatoes
Bind the meat and form soft, starchy pieces that help hold the hash together.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it cooks.
Butter or fried meat drippings
Adds fat that enriches flavor and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Add enough water to moisten the mixture. Baking without stirring can dry out the surface while the lower layers stay pasty if the moisture is uneven. Adding just enough water lets the mixture steam gently and keeps the hash tender rather than dry or stodgy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Onionthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, potato, pepper, butter. 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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