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To Hash Mutton

A stew of mutton pieces simmered with gravy, mushroom ketchup, onion, and seasonings, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

To Hash Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine gravy or broth, mushroom ketchup, pepper, salt, and sliced onion in a stew pan.

  2. Heat over medium until it simmers, then thicken with flour and butter.

Finish the hash

  1. Add the mutton and shake gently until heated through, avoiding boiling to keep the meat tender.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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 main meat, which stays tender when heated gently rather than boiled.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat and onion instead of running thin.
Butter
Enriches the thickened sauce with fat, adding richness and smoothness.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury flavour as it softens in the simmering gravy.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds deep savoury, umami flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Add the mutton and shake gently until heated through, avoiding boiling to keep the meat tender.. Boiling toughens meat proteins and dries out the fibres. Gentle heat warms the mutton through while keeping it moist and tender.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, mushroom, ketchup, pepper, flour, butter. 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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