Name: To Hash Mutton Like Venison
Ingredients: Mutton, cut thin; ¼ pint gravy; 1 tablespoon red wine; 1 onion, peeled and chopped finely; A little lemon peel, shredded finely; 2 tablespoons butter, rolled in flour

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Hash Mutton Like Venison

Ingredients

Mutton, cut thin
¼ pint gravy
1 tablespoon red wine
1 onion, peeled and chopped finely
A little lemon peel, shredded finely
2 tablespoons butter, rolled in flour

Directions

Prepare

Boil the bones and strain the liquor.

Make the hash

In a saucepan, combine the gravy, red wine, chopped onion, lemon peel, and butter.
Add the thinly cut mutton to the saucepan and shake together.
Heat thoroughly and then pour into a 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.

Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Red wine + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,599 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

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

Mutton: The main ingredient, cut thin so it heats through quickly and stays tender.
Gravy: Forms the liquid base that carries flavour and keeps the meat moist.
Red wine: Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the gravy.
Onion: Adds aroma and mild savour as it cooks in the sauce.
Butter: Adds richness, and the flour coating helps thicken the sauce.

The step that matters

Heat thoroughly. Heating gently keeps the mutton tender and the sauce smooth. Prolonged hard boiling toughens meat proteins and can make the butter and flour coating separate or turn greasy.

Swap the lemon

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

Plumfits better
Pearfits better
Grapefits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, red wine, onion, butter, flour. 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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To Hash Mutton Like Venison