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A Nice Hash of Mutton

A hash of mutton cooked with gravy, onion, mushrooms, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

A Nice Hash of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the cold gravy, chopped onion, and mushrooms.

  2. Boil gently, then add the cold mutton pieces.

  3. Thicken the gravy with a little flour and butter.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mushroom + muttontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together685 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Mutton
Supplies the meat and savoury flavour; it is already cooked, so it needs only warming through.
Gravy
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour and keeps the hash moist.
Mushrooms
Add savoury, earthy flavour and extra body to the hash.
Onion
Adds aroma and savoury depth as it softens in the liquid.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells when heated in the gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and mouthfeel, and helps the flour blend smoothly into the gravy.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy with flour and butter. Flour must be blended with the butter and heated in the liquid so its starch swells evenly. Adding it raw or in clumps leaves lumps and a pasty taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, mutton, flour, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, mutton, flour, butter. 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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