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Hashed Mutton Os Lamb

A hash of minced mutton or lamb simmered with ketchup, capers, and browned flour, served hot on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,024 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Hashed Mutton Os Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat off the bones and mince it.

Make the sauce

  1. Put the bones in a little water and stew them.

  2. Thicken the water with browned flour.

  3. Add a little ketchup and a few capers.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the minced meat and let it simmer for two minutes.

  2. Serve it hot on toast.

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. Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Capers + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Meat + muttontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

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

  5. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 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

Meat from mutton or lamb
Provides the main savoury flavour and the bulk of the hash.
Bones from mutton or lamb
Stewing the bones in water releases flavour and gelatin into the liquid, enriching the sauce.
Browned flour
Thickens the liquid and adds a toasted, nutty depth of flavour.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the rich meat.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny accent that cuts through the richness.

The step that matters

Thicken the water with browned flour. Flour must be added to hot liquid in a way that avoids lumps; whisking it in smoothly and simmering lets the starch swell evenly and thicken the sauce properly.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, mutton, flour, ketchup, capers):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, mutton, flour, ketchup, capers. 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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