Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Hashed Mutton
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the meat
Cut cold boiled or roast mutton into slices and remove the solid fat from the sliced mutton.
Break the bones of the mutton.
Place the sliced mutton in a saucepan with the sliced onion.
Pour in enough broth or stock to just cover the meat.
Simmer until hot, but do not let it boil.
Rest overnight
Transfer the mixture to an earthen dish and cover it overnight.
In the morning, skim off the fat.
Return the mixture to the pot.
Simmer and thicken
Add seasoning and a little flour.
Let it simmer without boiling for a long time, pouring in milk as needed as the meat dries.
A quarter of an hour before serving, remove the bones and skin.
Add 2 teaspoons of walnut or mushroom catsup.
Thicken with flour, oatmeal, or cornmeal mixed with milk and the hash liquid.
Boil for one more minute.
Adjust seasoning if necessary.
Serve
Serve with toasted bread.
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.
-
Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
-
Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,488 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,873 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Meat + walnuttop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,035 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
-
Mutton + meattop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together936 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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, whose fat and bones flavour the broth as it simmers.
- Onion
- Sweetens and deepens the savoury flavour of the broth as it cooks down.
- Flour, oatmeal, or cornmeal
- Starch that thickens the liquid into a binding, spoonable sauce.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and softness as the meat dries during long simmering.
- Walnut or mushroom catsup
- Adds concentrated savoury, umami depth to the sauce.
The step that matters
Simmer without boiling. Boiling toughens meat proteins and makes them dry and stringy, while gentle simmering keeps the meat tender and the sauce smooth. Boiling after thickening can also cause starch to clump or scorch.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, meat, walnut, flour, milk, bread):
- Shallotfits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Potatofits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, meat, walnut, flour, milk, 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.
You might also like
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
White Bread80 recipes
Bread Omelette60 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.