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To Hash Cold Mottos

A hash of cold mutton simmered in a sauce of bones, onion, herbs, mace, pepper, salt, and crust, served on toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Hash Cold Mottos

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the bones with the onion, sweet herbs, mace, whole pepper, coarse sea salt, and toasted crust until there is enough liquid for sauce.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Return the liquid to a saucepan.

  4. Add the butter rolled in flour to the saucepan.

Make the hash and serve

  1. Add the mutton to the saucepan.

  2. Heat until very hot.

  3. Serve on toasted bread cut into triangles.

  4. Pour the hash over it.

  5. Garnish with pickles.

  6. Garnish with finely chopped small onion if desired.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Provides the cooked meat that forms the body of the hash.
Butter rolled in flour
Thickens the liquid into a sauce and adds richness.
Toasted crust
Adds toasted, browned flavor to the liquid used for the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the butter rolled in flour. Flour needs to be cooked into the hot liquid so it thickens smoothly without leaving a raw, pasty taste. Whisking it in well keeps lumps from forming.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, pepper, butter, flour, 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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