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Hashed Mutton

A stew of sliced mutton simmered with spices and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Hashed Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim all sinews, skin, and gristle from the mutton and cut it into neat slices.

  2. Place the sliced mutton on a plate.

Make the stock

  1. Cover the remaining joint and bones with boiling water.

  2. Add peppercorns, allspice, parsley, sliced celery, and lemon-thyme to the pot.

  3. Simmer gently for 30 minutes.

Fry the onion

  1. Slice the onion and place it in a stewpan with butter.

  2. Fry the onion over medium heat until golden.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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, whose slices make up the body of the hash.
Butter
Carries the onion in the pan and adds richness and browning as it fries.
Onion
Softens and turns golden in butter, adding sweetness and savoury depth.
Celery
Adds a fresh, vegetal aroma to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Fry the onion until golden. Frying over medium heat browns the onion's sugars gradually, giving sweetness and colour. Higher heat can scorch the sugars before the onion softens, leaving a bitter taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, allspice, parsley, celery, lemon, thyme, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, allspice, parsley, celery, lemon, thyme, 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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