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Hashed Beef, Veal, or Mutton

A hash made from cold roast beef, veal, or mutton simmered with onion and gravy, served over toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hashed Beef, Veal, or Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat and bones

  1. Cut the cold meat into small, thin slices, trimming away gristly parts.

  2. Break the bones.

Make the sauce

  1. Simmer the bones with sliced onion in a little water to extract gravy.

  2. Add sliced carrot and sweet herbs while simmering bones.

  3. Remove bones and trimmings.

  4. Strain the sauce.

  5. Add any leftover roast-meat gravy.

  6. Season the sauce with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  7. Thicken the sauce with butter rolled in flour.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add the cold meat to the sauce.

  2. Warm the hash gently by the fire until heated through.

  3. Add mushroom ketchup before serving.

  4. Serve the hash in a dish lined with toasted bread.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast beef
Provides the main meat and savoury flavour of the hash.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the gravy as it simmers.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and, with flour, helps it thicken smoothly.
Flour
Thickens the butter-based sauce so it coats the meat.
Toasted bread
Forms a crisp base that the hash is served on.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with butter rolled in flour. Flour must be cooked in the hot liquid to thicken smoothly; adding it raw or in clumps leaves lumps and a floury taste.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, mutton, pepper, butter, flour, bread. 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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