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Savoury Hash

Savory hash made with mutton, butter, flour, onion, herbs, mushroom ketchup, and warm water gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Savoury Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Peel and slice the onion, then add it to the melted butter.

  3. Stir in the flour and fry for 1-2 minutes until browned.

  4. Pour the gravy into the saucepan with the flour and butter, stirring until it boils and thickens.

Prepare the mutton

  1. Open the tin of Australian mutton and remove the fat from the meat.

  2. Take 1½ pounds of mutton from the tin.

  3. If using all the meat, rinse the tin with ½ pint of warm water to make gravy.

  4. If not all the meat is used, melt some jelly from the tin in ½ pint of warm water for gravy.

Finish

  1. Chop the parsley, marjoram, and thyme leaves finely and add them to the mixture.

  2. Keep the saucepan warm off the heat.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Australian mutton
Provides the main meat, with its fat and jelly adding richness to the gravy.
Butter
Carries the onion and flour and adds richness and flavour to the base.
Flour
Browns in the butter and thickens the gravy as it boils.
Onion
Softens in the butter and adds savoury sweetness to the base.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury depth to the finished mixture.

The step that matters

Stir the gravy as it boils and thickens. Adding liquid to flour can form lumps if not stirred. Constant stirring disperses the starch granules evenly, so the gravy thickens smoothly as it comes to a boil.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, flour, thyme, marjoram, parsley, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, flour, thyme, marjoram, parsley, pepper. 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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