Why it works: Butter and mushroom 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 ↓
Savoury Hash
Ingredients
Directions
Start the sauce
Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.
Peel and slice the onion, then add it to the melted butter.
Stir in the flour and fry for 1–2 minutes until browned.
Prepare the mutton
Open the tin of Australian mutton and remove the fat from the meat.
Take 1½ pounds of mutton from the tin.
If using all the meat, rinse the tin with ½ cup warm water to make gravy.
Finish the sauce
Pour the gravy into the saucepan with the flour and butter, stirring until it boils and thickens.
Keep the saucepan warm off the heat.
Finely chop the mixed pickles and stir them or the vinegar into the sauce.
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.
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Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,626 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together68,474 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Australian mutton
- Forms the main body of the hash as the meat that gives it its flavour.
- Butter
- Adds richness and carries the onion and flour as they cook.
- Flour
- Thickens the gravy as its starch swells when heated with liquid.
- Onion
- Softens and sweetens as it cooks, adding savoury aroma to the sauce.
- Mixed pickles or vinegar
- Adds sharp acidity that brightens the rich meat and gravy.
The step that matters
Stir in the flour and fry until browned. Cooking flour in butter removes its raw taste and helps prevent lumps. Stirring keeps it smooth and even, and it must cook before the gravy is added so the sauce thickens evenly.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, flour, vinegar, pepper, mushroom, ketchup):
- Shallotfits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Chivefits about as well
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, flour, vinegar, pepper, mushroom, ketchup. 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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