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A Mutton Hash

A savory hash of mutton, onions, shallots, capers, gherkins, and gravy, served with toasted bread and garnished with pickles and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

A Mutton Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dust the mutton pieces with flour.

  2. Prepare gravy with sweet herbs, onion, pepper, and salt; strain it.

Make the hash

  1. Add the mutton, butter, shallot, capers, and gherkins to the gravy.

  2. Toss everything together for 1-2 minutes.

Serve

  1. Arrange the toasted snippets around a serving dish.

  2. Pour the hash into the center of the dish.

  3. Garnish with pickles and horseradish.

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. Shallot + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 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
Forms the main body of the hash and is the protein the dish is built around.
Flour
Dusting the mutton helps it brown lightly and lends body to the gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the hash.
Capers
Add sharp acidity that cuts through the richness of the mutton and gravy.
Gherkins
Add sour, tangy acidity and a crisp contrast to the soft meat.
Onion
Builds savoury sweetness and depth of flavour in the gravy.

The step that matters

Toss everything together for 1-2 minutes. Tossing briefly warms the mutton and coats it evenly in the gravy without overcooking it. Longer heating toughens the meat and thickens the sauce too far.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Welsh onionfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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