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To Hash Mutton

A savory dish of sliced roasted mutton cooked with onion, anchovies, ketchup, spices, and butter, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

To Hash Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the roasted mutton into thin slices.

  2. Remove excess fat.

  3. Break the bone and make gravy with whole black pepper and onion.

  4. Strain the gravy and remove the fat.

Cook the hash

  1. In a saucepan, combine the mutton, chopped boiled onion, anchovies, walnut ketchup, mushroom ketchup, cayenne, and salt.

  2. Add melted butter, a little flour, and water to thicken.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Add leftover gravy if desired.

Serve

  1. Serve with toasted bread around the dish and garnish with green pickles.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Walnut + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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 savoury body of the hash.
Anchovies
Add concentrated savoury depth, rounding out the sauce without tasting fishy.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a cohesive, spoonable sauce as it heats.
Walnut ketchup
Contributes concentrated umami and a deep, dark savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with flour. Flour must be added to the liquid gradually and heated long enough to cook out its raw taste and swell into a smooth thickened sauce. Adding it all at once, or without enough stirring and heat, leaves lumps or a floury flavour.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, pepper, ketchup, mushroom, butter, flour):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Sesamefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, pepper, ketchup, mushroom, butter, flour. 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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