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A Common Hash of Cold Beef or Mutton

A hash made from sliced cold beef or mutton simmered in a seasoned broth with herbs, spices, and optional boiled potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley 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 ↓

A Common Hash of Cold Beef or Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Remove the meat from the bones and slice it small.

  2. Trim off the brown parts and add the trimmings to the broken bones.

  3. Add thyme, parsley, carrot, peppercorns, cloves, and salt to the bones.

  4. Pour in the water and reduce the mixture to about ¾ of a pot.

  5. Strain the mixture and remove any fat.

Finish the hash

  1. Thicken the broth with rice flour or arrowroot, adding salt and pepper if needed.

  2. Boil the mixture for a few minutes, then add the meat and stir well.

  3. Optionally, add sliced boiled potatoes to the hash.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice flour or arrowroot
Thickens the broth into a light gravy that coats the meat.
Cold beef or mutton
Provides the main meat and flavour for the hash.
Bones
Release gelatin and savoury flavour into the broth as they simmer.
Boiled potatoes
Add body and starch, making the hash more substantial (optional).

The step that matters

Thicken the broth. Starch thickens only when heated in liquid and then boiled briefly; adding rice flour or arrowroot too late or without boiling leaves the broth thin and lumpy. Stir well to keep the starch evenly dispersed.

Swap the potato

The recipe marks potato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, meat, thyme, parsley, carrot, clove, rice):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, thyme, parsley, carrot, clove, rice. 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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