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Corned Beef Hash

A hash of chopped corned beef, potatoes, onion juice, stock, and pepper, cooked in butter and served with toast points and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Corned Beef Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the corned beef, potatoes, stock, onion juice, and pepper well in a bowl.

  2. Melt the butter in a small skillet.

Cook

  1. Pack the mixture into the skillet, smoothing the top, then cover the pan.

  2. Place the skillet on the back part of the stove.

  3. Brown slowly without stirring.

  4. Cook for about 30 minutes.

  5. Fold the hash like an omelet.

Serve

  1. Turn it out onto a heated platter.

  2. Garnish with toast points and 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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

Corned beef
Provides the main meaty flavour and the bulk of the hash.
Potatoes
Add starch that binds the hash and helps it brown crisply on the surface.
Butter or drippings
Fat that carries flavour and helps the underside brown in the skillet.
Onion juice
Adds savoury, aromatic flavour without visible onion pieces.
Stock or water
Adds moisture so the hash cooks through and stays tender.

The step that matters

Brown slowly without stirring. Leaving the hash undisturbed lets a crust form on the bottom through browning reactions. Stirring breaks that crust and keeps the hash pale and mushy, so the slow, still cook is what gives the contrast in texture.

Swap the onion

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

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

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