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Hashed Mutton

A stew of sliced boiled or roasted mutton simmered with onion, broth, seasoning, and catsup, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Hashed Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Cut cold boiled or roast mutton into slices and remove the solid fat.

  2. Break the bones and place the mutton in a saucepan with the sliced onion.

  3. Pour enough broth or stock to just cover the meat.

  4. Let it simmer at boiling heat without boiling.

  5. Transfer to an earthen dish.

  6. Cover it and let it sit overnight.

  7. Skim off the fat.

Make the hash

  1. Return the mixture to the pot.

  2. Add seasoning and a little flour.

  3. Let it simmer without boiling for a long time.

  4. Pour in milk.

  5. Remove the bones and skin.

  6. Add 2 teaspoons of walnut or mushroom catsup.

  7. Thicken with flour, oatmeal, or cornmeal mixed with milk and the hash liquid.

  8. Boil for one more minute.

  9. Adjust seasoning if needed.

Serve

  1. Serve with toasted bread.

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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Provides the main meat, whose gelatin enriches the broth as it simmers slowly.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the broth as it cooks down.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, cohesive hash as it simmers.
Milk
Adds richness and softness, rounding the flavour and texture of the hash.
Walnut or mushroom catsup
Adds concentrated savoury depth and umami to the finished hash.

The step that matters

Simmering without boiling. A gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and the broth clear. A hard boil toughens proteins and can break the sauce, so keep the liquid just below a boil.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, walnut, flour, milk, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, walnut, flour, milk, bread. 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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