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A Common Hash of Cold Beef or Mutton

A hash made from cold beef or mutton, onions, herbs, and spices, thickened with flour or arrowroot.

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 stock

  1. Remove the meat from the bones and slice it small, trimming off the brown edges.

  2. Stew the trimmings with the broken bones, onion, thyme, parsley, carrot, peppercorns, cloves, salt, and water.

  3. Reduce the mixture to just over ¾ cup.

  4. Strain the mixture and remove the fat.

Finish the hash

  1. Thicken the strained liquid with rice flour or arrowroot.

  2. Add salt and pepper if needed.

  3. Boil the thickened liquid for a few minutes.

  4. Add the sliced meat to the liquid.

  5. Heat the hash thoroughly.

  6. Optionally, slice boiled potatoes into 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold beef or mutton
Provides the meat that forms the body of the hash.
Rice flour or arrowroot
Thickens the strained liquid into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
Onion
Adds savory depth to the stock as it stews.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and body to the stock.

The step that matters

Thicken the strained liquid. Starch must be fully hydrated and brought to a boil to thicken properly. Boiling for a few minutes after adding it helps it set smooth rather than leaving a raw floury taste or a thin sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, thyme, parsley, carrot, clove, rice, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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