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Mutton Hashed in the Style of Venison

A mutton hash thickened with flour and served with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Port wine and currant work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 356 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Mutton Hashed in the Style of Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the mutton gravy in a saucepan.

  2. Add Cayenne pepper, salt, and flour to thicken.

  3. Stir in a little butter.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the sliced mutton and let it simmer for 4-5 minutes.

  2. Pour in the port wine and do not let it boil.

  3. Serve with currant jelly.

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 + curranttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together356 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter 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

Mutton
Provides the main meat and savory flavor of the hash.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat and holds together.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy texture to the sauce.
Port wine
Adds depth and a subtly sweet, fruity note to the gravy.
Currant jelly
Adds tart-sweet fruitiness that balances the rich, savory meat.

The step that matters

Pour in the port wine and do not let it boil. Alcohol and delicate flavor compounds in port are driven off by prolonged boiling, and sustained high heat can make a thickened sauce break or taste harsh. Keeping it below a boil preserves the wine's aroma and keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, flour, butter, port wine):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Red currantfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, flour, butter, port wine. 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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