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Hash Mutton Like Venison

A savory hash of mutton or venison cooked with onion, herbs, mace, pepper, and a butter‑flour sauce, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Hash Mutton Like Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine onion, sweet herbs, mace, whole pepper, and toasted crust in a saucepan.

  2. Add enough water to bring to a boil, then strain the liquid to make a sauce.

  3. Return the strained liquid to the saucepan.

  4. Add the butter rolled in flour.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the meat and heat until very hot.

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

  3. Pour the hash into the center.

  4. Add pickles or finely chopped onion as garnish, if desired.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + red winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,599 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Butter rolled in flour
Flour and butter thicken the strained liquid into a smooth, glossy sauce.
Meat (mutton or venison)
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the hash.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory depth to the sauce.
Red wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich meat.

The step that matters

Add the butter rolled in flour. Flour coated in butter must be stirred into the hot liquid so it disperses evenly. Added in lumps or without enough stirring, it forms clumps and the sauce turns uneven rather than smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, butter, flour, meat, red wine, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, butter, flour, meat, red wine, lemon. 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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