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Hashed Mutton for a Dish

A dish of thinly sliced mutton cooked with pickles, cucumbers, walnuts or onions, simmered in a butter, veal stock, ketchup sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,991 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hashed Mutton for a Dish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauce

  1. Cut the mutton into thin slices.

  2. Place the mutton in a stewpan with slices of pickles, cucumbers, walnuts, or onions.

  3. In a separate pan, melt the butter over low heat and sauté chopped shallots or onions until three-quarters cooked.

  4. Add the veal stock and ketchup to the sautéed mixture and bring to a boil for 10 minutes.

  5. Season with cayenne pepper and salt to taste, then strain the sauce over the mutton.

Stew and serve

  1. Let it stew gently until thoroughly hot, adding a small quantity of liquid coloring if desired.

  2. When serving, grill the bones seasoned with pepper and salt and place them over the hash.

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. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  2. Mutton + vealtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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

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

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

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

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (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, which stays tender when gently stewed in the sauce.
Fresh butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and carries the flavor of the sautéed onions or shallots.
Veal stock or gravy
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and gives it savory body.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity that brighten the savory sauce.

The step that matters

Bringing the sauce to a boil. Boiling the stock and ketchup for 10 minutes reduces and concentrates the sauce. If the sauce is too thin or not reduced enough, it will dilute the meat, so the sauce should be kept at a steady simmer until it thickens slightly before straining.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, veal, ketchup, 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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