Skip to main content
Main

Hashed Mutton

Cold roast mutton, sliced off the bone and warmed through in gravy made from its bones.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Hashed Mutton

4 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat and bones

  1. Cut the meat in nice even slices from the bones, trimming off all superfluous fat and gristle.

  2. Chop the bones and fragments of the joint, put them into a stewpan with the pepper, spice, herbs, and celery.

Make the gravy

  1. Cover with water, and simmer for 1 hour.

  2. Slice and fry the onion to a nice pale-brown colour.

  3. Dredge the onion in a little flour to make it thick, and add this to the bones.

  4. Stew for 1/4 hour.

  5. Strain the gravy, and let it cool.

  6. Skim off every particle of fat, and put it, with the meat, into a stewpan.

Season and warm

  1. Flavour with ketchup, Harvey's sauce, tomato sauce, or any flavouring that may be preferred.

  2. Let the meat gradually warm through, but not boil, or it will harden.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

134Calories
7 gProtein
1 gFat
28 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Pea1/2 cup (72g)62
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Allspice1 tsp ground (1.9g)5
Lettuce1 cup shredded (36g)5
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot 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 Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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 + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Celery + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Onion
Fried to pale brown, it adds sweetness and savoury depth to the gravy.
Celery
Simmered with the bones, it adds a fresh, aromatic flavour to the gravy.
Flour (in the method)
Dredged onto the onion, it thickens the gravy as it stews.

The step that matters

Let the meat gradually warm through, but not boil. Boiling tightens and toughens the meat's proteins, so gentle heating keeps the slices tender and moist rather than hard.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, pepper, allspice, onion, lettuce):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, pepper, allspice, onion, lettuce. 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.

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesGreen Peas SoupGreen Peas Soup35 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipes