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To Hash Cold Mutton

Cold mutton simmered in a spiced broth, served with toasted bread triangles and pickles.

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 ↓

To Hash Cold Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the bones with the onion, sweet herbs, mace, whole pepper, coarse sea salt, and toasted crust until there is enough liquid for sauce.

  2. Strain the broth and return it to a saucepan with the butter and flour mixture.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add the mutton to the saucepan and heat until very hot.

  2. Cut the toasted bread into triangles and arrange them around a serving dish.

  3. Pour the hot mutton mixture into the center of the dish and garnish with pickles.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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 mutton
Provides the meat that is reheated in the sauce to make the hash.
Butter and flour
Flour and melted butter thicken the strained broth into a smooth sauce.
Toasted crust
Toasting and simmering it adds a browned, roasted flavour to the broth.
Thin bread
Toasted brown and cut into triangles, it forms a crisp base around the dish.

The step that matters

Thickening the broth with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter and hot liquid, or the sauce stays pasty or lumpy. Stirring it into the strained broth while it is hot lets the starch swell evenly and thicken smoothly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

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