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Hash, Nursery

A hash of cooked mutton or lamb with onions, potatoes, celery, and stock, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hash, Nursery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil the onions and potatoes until slightly tender.

  2. Cut the onions, potatoes, and celery into small pieces.

Cook

  1. Place them in a stewpan, add salt, pepper, and stock, and cook until the celery is soft and the potatoes are broken up.

  2. In a separate saucepan, heat the cut-up meat in the stock.

  3. Mix the contents of both pans together and serve.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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

What each ingredient does

Mutton or lamb
Provides the main meat flavour and the substance of the hash.
Potatoes
Break down during cooking to thicken the hash and give it a soft, cohesive body.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma as they soften in the stock.
Stock
Supplies moisture and flavour, cooking the vegetables and carrying the taste through the dish.

The step that matters

Cook until the potatoes are broken up. Potatoes must be cooked until they begin to collapse, since their starch releases into the liquid and thickens it. Undercooked potatoes stay firm and do not bind the hash together.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, potato, meat, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, potato, meat, 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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