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To Hash Mutton

A dish of thinly sliced mutton sautéed with onion, gravy, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Hash Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Flour the thin slices of mutton.

Heat and serve

  1. In a pan, combine boiled onion with a little gravy and the seasoned meat.

  2. Heat the mixture gently, but do not let it boil.

  3. Serve in a covered dish.

  4. For added flavor, substitute onion with a clove, currant jelly, and port wine.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Currant + port winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together356 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  4. Clove + port winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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, cooked gently so it stays tender in the sauce.
Flour
Coats the meat so it helps thicken the gravy and holds the sauce.
Gravy
Supplies liquid and savory flavor, keeping the meat moist as it heats.
Boiled onion
Adds body and mild sweetness to the hash.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture gently, but do not let it boil. Boiling toughens meat proteins and can make the thin slices dry and stringy, so gentle heat keeps them tender and moist.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, flour, onion, pepper, ketchup, currant, port wine):

  1. Allspicefits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, onion, pepper, ketchup, currant, port wine. 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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