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Hashed Lamb on Toast with Poached Egg

A hash of finely chopped cold lamb and mashed potatoes served on toast topped with a poached egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hashed Lamb on Toast with Poached Egg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cold lamb very fine.

  2. Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them finely.

Make the hash

  1. Combine the mashed potatoes with the chopped lamb and enough Allemande sauce to achieve a hash-like consistency.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and a little ground mace, then heat the mixture.

Serve

  1. Serve the hot hash on toast and top with a poached egg.

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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Lamb + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Potato + macetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together288 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cold lamb
Provides the main meat and bulk of the hash.
Potatoes
Mashed to bind the lamb and give the hash a soft, moist texture.
Allemande sauce
Adds moisture and richness so the mixture holds together as a hash.
Poached egg
Adds richness and a soft, runny yolk that moistens the hash when broken.

The step that matters

Heating the hash after seasoning. Heating gently and stirring until the mixture is evenly hot lets the potato and sauce bind without scorching on the pan base, which would give a burnt taste.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, potato, sauce, pepper, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, potato, sauce, pepper, egg. 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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