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Savoury Hash

A hash of mutton, onion, herbs, and mushroom ketchup cooked in butter and flour.

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

Fry the 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 let it fry for 1-2 minutes until browned.

Make the gravy

  1. Open the tin of Australian mutton, remove the fat from the meat, and take 1½ pounds of mutton from the tin.

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

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

  4. Move the saucepan to the side of the heat to keep warm.

Prepare the herbs

  1. Wash and dry the parsley, thyme, and marjoram, then chop the leaves finely.

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 and the savoury flavour of the hash.
Butter
Carries flavour and adds richness, and helps the flour cook evenly.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Onion
Softens and turns sweeter as it cooks in the butter, adding aroma.
Thyme
Adds a herbal aroma that suits the rich mutton.

The step that matters

Stirring the gravy into the flour and butter until it boils and thickens. Adding liquid to hot flour can form lumps. Constant stirring spreads the flour evenly, and the starch then swells as the mixture boils, giving a smooth, thickened gravy.

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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