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Hashed Mutton Plain

Hashed Mutton is a dish of thinly sliced mutton seasoned with flour, pepper, salt, and Harvey sauce, boiled with onion and served with dry toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hashed Mutton Plain

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Cut the mutton into very thin small slices.

  2. Sprinkle flour, pepper, and salt over the slices.

Cook

  1. In a stewpan, boil finely chopped onion with a little broth or water.

  2. Add the mutton slices, season with pepper, salt, and a little Harvey sauce.

  3. Boil together for three minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with dry 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 + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 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

Mutton
Provides the main meat, which cooks quickly in thin slices and gives the dish its body.
Flour
Coats the slices so the cooking liquid thickens slightly and clings to the meat.
Onion
Softens in the simmering liquid, adding sweetness and savory aroma to the sauce.
Broth or water
Provides the cooking liquid that keeps the meat moist and carries the flavors.
Harvey sauce
Adds a tangy, savory depth that seasons the meat and the liquid.

The step that matters

Boil together for three minutes. Thin mutton slices cook in very little time. Boiling them longer tightens the proteins, making the meat tough and dry.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, pepper, sauce. 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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