Skip to main content
Main

Hashed Mutton with Herbs

A dish of underdone mutton stewed with butter, shallot, parsley, mushrooms, flour, and broth, seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Hashed Mutton with Herbs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a casserole, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Add the minced shallot, parsley, and mushrooms; cook gently.

  3. Gradually mix in the flour and broth; stew until flavors meld.

Finish the hash

  1. Let the mixture cool slightly, then mince the underdone mutton without boiling.

  2. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the base and carries flavor while the shallot and mushrooms cook gently.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth sauce that coats the mutton.
Broth
Provides the liquid that forms the sauce and keeps the hash moist.
Mushrooms
Add earthy savoury flavor and moisture to the sauce.
Mutton
Serves as the main meat, kept tender by not boiling it.

The step that matters

Mincing the mutton without boiling. Boiling toughens meat proteins and dries out the fibres, so the mutton stays tender and moist when it is added to the warm sauce.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Turmericfits about as well

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

More mutton hash recipes

Cold 4with Mushrooms 4 See all 80 →

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipes