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Hashed Mutton with Herbs

A dish of minced mutton cooked with 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 over low heat.

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

  3. Gradually mix in the flour and broth; stir until combined.

Finish the hash

  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. Mushroom + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the base and carries the flavour of the shallot and mushrooms.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth sauce that binds the minced meat.
Beef broth
Provides the liquid that becomes the sauce and moistens the mutton.
Mushrooms
Add earthy savoury flavour and body to the sauce.
Underdone mutton
Is the main meat, gently warmed in the sauce so it stays tender.

The step that matters

Fold in the mutton without boiling. Boiling toughens cooked meat proteins and can make the mutton dry and grainy, so the sauce should be cooled slightly and the meat only warmed through.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, shallot, mushroom, flour, beef, 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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