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Hashed Mutton with Cucumbers

A hash of cold roast mutton cooked with cucumbers, butter, flour, stock, and optional gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Hashed Mutton with Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Slice the cucumbers thinly, peel them, and remove the seeds.

  2. Soak the cucumber slices in vinegar and salt for 2 hours, then drain well.

Make the hash

  1. In a saucepan, heat the butter and ham, then add the cucumbers and cook until they begin to color.

  2. Stir in the flour and add equal parts stock and gravy, or more stock if you don't have gravy.

  3. Allow the cucumbers to stew gently, skimming off any fat occasionally.

  4. Once cooked, add a little cullis to thicken, or more flour if you don't have cullis.

  5. Cut the cold roast mutton into thin dice and add it to the ragout to heat without boiling.

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 + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cucumber + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Ham + muttontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

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

Cucumbers
Give the hash its main bulk and a fresh, slightly tart vegetable character.
Vinegar
Acidifies the cucumbers during soaking, giving a sharp, tangy flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the cucumbers take on colour in the pan.
Flour
Thickens the stock and gravy into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Cold roast mutton
Supplies the meat base of the hash, heated gently so it stays tender.

The step that matters

Heating the mutton without boiling. Boiling the thinly diced mutton toughens its proteins and dries the meat, so it should only be warmed through in the simmering sauce.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, butter, ham, flour, mutton):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, butter, ham, flour, mutton. 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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