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Hashed Mutton for a Dish

A savory hash of cooked mutton, pickled cucumbers, walnuts, onions, and a seasoned butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 264 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Hashed Mutton for a Dish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine the sliced mutton, pickled cucumbers, walnuts, and onions in a stewpan.

  2. Melt a bit of fresh butter in a separate pan and sauté the chopped shallots or onions with a little flour over low heat until partially cooked.

Make the sauce

  1. Add 2 cups of veal broth or gravy and a little catchup to the shallots or onions.

  2. Boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Season the mixture with Cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Strain the seasoned mixture over the mutton.

Finish

  1. Stew gently until thoroughly hot in a pot of boiling water.

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. Cucumber + shallottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together264 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Walnut + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together440 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cucumber + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  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 bulk of the dish, providing the savory meat base for the hash.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid, giving the sauce body when cooked with the shallots or onions.
Veal broth or gravy
Supplies the liquid that becomes the savory sauce binding the hash together.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a rich, nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft meat.
Pickled cucumbers
Add acidity and tang that cut through the richness of the meat and sauce.

The step that matters

Sautéing the shallots or onions with flour over low heat. Cooking flour in butter over low heat until partially cooked removes its raw taste and helps it thicken the sauce evenly. Too much heat can scorch the flour or brown the onions unevenly, leaving lumps or a bitter flavor.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, cucumber, walnut, shallot, butter, flour, veal):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, cucumber, walnut, shallot, butter, flour, veal. 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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