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Mutton Hash

A stew of mutton, onion, and water, thickened with flour and browned in dripping, served with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mutton Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and chop the onion.

  2. Cut the mutton into 4‑inch lengths.

Cook

  1. Fry the mutton until light brown.

  2. In a pan, heat the dripping and stir in the flour until brown.

  3. Add the water, onion, mutton, pepper, and salt.

  4. Simmer for 40 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with parsley.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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, browned for flavour and cooked until tender in the liquid.
Flour
Browned in the dripping to thicken the liquid and add a toasty, savoury flavour.
Dripping
Fat used to brown the flour and carry flavour through the dish.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens in the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in the dripping. Flour cooked until brown develops nutty, roasted flavour and colour, but it can scorch quickly over high heat. Stir constantly and watch closely, since scorched flour tastes bitter and spoils the hash.

Swap the onion

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

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

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