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Hashed Meat Balls

A stew of meatballs made from steak, mutton, and potatoes, simmered in gravy with onions, carrots, turnips, celery, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mansfield, W. H., & co., Putnam, Conn., pub. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and turnip are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,418 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Hashed Meat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the meatball cakes

  1. Combine one cup of chopped remnants of steak or any meat, two cups of chopped boiled potatoes, pepper, salt, and half an egg.

  2. Shape the mixture into round cakes using flour.

  3. Fry the cakes in butter.

Make the mutton and gravy

  1. Divide the chops of a two-pound loin of mutton and remove excess fat.

  2. Cut two onions into rings.

  3. Fry the onions and mutton until browned in a good-sized piece of butter.

  4. Thicken a half-pint of gravy with a little flour and pour it over the chops.

  5. Set the chops aside to stew slowly for three-quarters of an hour or more.

Add the vegetables and serve

  1. Parboil two carrots, two turnips, and half a head of celery.

  2. Cut the carrots into shapes and the celery into slices.

  3. Add the vegetables to the meat about twenty minutes before serving.

  4. Pour in a glass of port wine, two spoonfuls of catsup, and a little Tour-nade's Kitchen Bouquet.

  5. After boiling it once up, serve hot.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1028Calories
52 gProtein
22 gFat
152 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 9 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Beef100g cooked250
Potato1 medium (173g) baked161
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Turnip1 medium (122g)34
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Muttonnot in our table0
Teanot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Mansfield, W. H., & co., Putnam, Conn., pub. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped boiled potatoes
Bind the cakes and add body and soft texture to the hash.
Loin of mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and rich during slow stewing.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor, coating the chops as they stew.
Onions
Browning in butter adds sweetness and savory depth to the dish.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and a firm, tender vegetable texture.
Catsup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the sauce.

The step that matters

Shape and fry the cakes. Flour on the outside helps the cakes hold their shape and brown evenly in the butter. Cakes that are too wet or loosely bound may crumble or stick while frying.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, mutton, flour, celery, egg, turnip, tea):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, mutton, flour, celery, egg, turnip, tea. 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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