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Hashed Mutton

Hashed mutton is sliced mutton cooked in a spiced tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Hashed Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold mutton into evenly sized slices, removing all fat, skin, and bone.

  2. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the minced eschalots and flour, stirring for 5 minutes until browned.

  2. Add the stock, salt, whole pepper, clove, allspice, bouquet garni, walnut ketchup, and tomato sauce. Stir until boiling.

  3. Boil for 5 minutes, then strain the sauce into another saucepan and let it cool.

Finish and serve

  1. Once cooled, add the pieces of mutton to the sauce.

  2. Heat the saucepan over low heat, shaking occasionally, but do not let it boil.

  3. Serve the warmed mutton with fried bread slices.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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, which is gently warmed in the sauce so it stays tender.
Eschalots
Browned in butter, they add savoury depth and sweetness to the sauce.
Butter
Carries the browning of the eschalots and adds richness to the sauce.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding body and savoury flavour.
Tomato sauce
Adds acidity and colour to the sauce.
Walnut ketchup
Adds a deep, savoury, salty note to the sauce.

The step that matters

Heat the mutton gently without boiling. Boiling toughens meat proteins and squeezes out moisture, so the mutton turns dry and chewy. Gentle, low heat warms it through while keeping it tender.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, tomato, sauce, butter, ketchup, pepper, clove):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Peasfits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, tomato, sauce, butter, ketchup, pepper, clove. 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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