Skip to main content
Main

Hash of Cold Mutton or Beef

A hash made from finely chopped bones and trimmings of a cold joint, simmered with spices and thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Hash of Cold Mutton or Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Chop the bones very fine.

  2. In a pot, combine the bones, salt, pepper, allspice, herbs, fried onion, carrot, and enough water to cover the bones.

  3. Simmer gently for two hours.

  4. Strain the mixture to obtain the gravy.

Finish and serve

  1. In a separate pan, melt the butter and add a little plain browned flour to thicken.

  2. Add the gravy to the thickened mixture and stir well.

  3. Finally, add the nicely cut-up meat and heat through without boiling.

  4. Serve with toast around the dish.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bones and trimmings
Provide the body and savory flavor that make the gravy rich.
Butter
Carries flavor and, with flour, forms the base that thickens the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when cooked briefly in melted butter.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aromatic depth to the simmered gravy.
Fried onion
Contributes savory, browned aroma to the gravy.

The step that matters

Heat the meat through without boiling. Boiling toughens cooked meat proteins and makes them dry and stringy, so the meat should only be warmed until hot in the thickened gravy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, allspice, carrot, butter, flour):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, carrot, butter, flour. 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

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes