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English Hash

A dish of sliced cold roast mutton simmered in a butter‑onion gravy with flour, water, cloves, vinegar, and ketchup, served with toasted bread triangles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

English Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gravy

  1. Dust the cold roast mutton slices lightly with flour.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and brown the chopped onion.

  3. Add flour and water, stirring until it boils.

  4. Add cloves and vinegar, then stir until smooth and strain through a sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Bring the gravy to a boil, then remove from heat and add the mutton slices.

  2. Let the meat steam in the gravy for 5 minutes.

  3. Add ketchup if desired and serve with toasted bread triangles.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

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

  4. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Cold roast mutton
Provides the meat that is gently warmed through in the gravy.
Butter
Fat that carries the onion flavour and browns it before the gravy is made.
Onion
Browned in butter to add savoury sweetness and depth to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the water into a smooth gravy that coats the meat.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the rich, thickened gravy.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour and water until smooth. Flour added to hot liquid can clump if not stirred constantly. Stirring while it comes to a boil disperses the starch evenly, giving a smooth, thickened gravy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, flour, onion, butter, vinegar, ketchup, bread):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, onion, butter, vinegar, ketchup, 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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