Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Hashed Mutton
Ingredients
Directions
Cut the lean cold mutton into small pieces and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Place the bones and trimmings in a saucepan, cover with water, and add sliced onions. Stew until a good gravy is formed.
Skim the gravy, strain it into a stew pan, and add the mutton.
Boil the carrots, turnips, potatoes, and onions, then slice and add them to the meat and gravy.
Simmer the mixture until the meat is warmed through, avoiding boiling.
Cover the bottom of a dish with slices of buttered toast, lay the meat and vegetables on top, and pour the gravy over them.
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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Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,023 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,107 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,555 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, carrot, turnip, potato):
- Leekfits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Spinachfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, carrot, turnip, potato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
More mutton hash recipes
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