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Hash of Cold Mutton

A hash made from sliced cold mutton cooked with onion, butter, flour, and gravy stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Hash of Cold Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the sliced mutton with salt and pepper, then dredge with flour.

Make the hash

  1. In a stew-pan, melt the butter and cook the minced onion until soft.

  2. Add the beef gravy stock or glaze to the onion and bring to a simmer.

  3. Add the seasoned mutton to the stew-pan and simmer gently until the sauce thickens.

Rest and serve

  1. Remove from heat and let it rest while you prepare the table.

  2. Before serving, reheat the stew-pan on the fire for a final boil.

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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 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 meat that becomes tender in the simmering sauce.
All-purpose flour
Dusted on the mutton, it helps thicken the sauce as it simmers.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavour of the softened onion.
Onion
Softens while cooking, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the sauce.
Beef gravy stock or glaze
Supplies the liquid and beefy flavour that forms the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering the mutton until the sauce thickens. Flour on the meat thickens the liquid only when it is simmered gently long enough to swell the starch. Boiling hard or stopping too early can leave the sauce thin or lumpy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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