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Hashed Mutton with Herbs

A savory hash of minced mutton, butter, shallot, parsley, mushrooms, flour, and broth, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Hashed Mutton with Herbs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a casserole, melt the butter.

  2. Add the minced shallot, parsley, and mushrooms; cook gently.

  3. Gradually mix in the flour and broth; stew until flavors combine.

Add the mutton

  1. Let the mixture cool slightly, then fold in the minced mutton without boiling.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Melts to form a fat base for cooking the shallot, parsley and mushrooms.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce that coats the meat.
Broth
Provides the liquid that becomes the sauce and keeps the mutton moist.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the sauce as they cook gently.
Mutton
Supplies the main meat, which is folded into the sauce to warm through.

The step that matters

Fold in the mutton without boiling. Boiling toughens cooked or delicate meat proteins and makes them dry and stringy, so the sauce should be cooled slightly before the mutton goes in.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Turmericfits about as well

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