Name: Medallions of Mutton with Green Pea Salad
Ingredients: lamb or mutton chops; fine-cut vegetables; brown chaudfroid sauce; white and yolk of egg; liquid aspic; cooked peas; French dressing

Why it works: Lamb and peas work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 650 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Medallions of Mutton with Green Pea Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Remove bones and fat from the lamb or mutton chops and skewer the meat in rounds.
Braise the meat with the bones and fine-cut vegetables until tender.
Let the meat cool under a weight and cover with brown chaudfroid sauce.
Decorate with white and yolk of egg, then brush with liquid aspic.
Serve cold with cooked peas dressed in French dressing.

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.

Lamb + peastop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together650 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Lamb + saucetop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together925 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).
Egg + peastop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,065 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).
Sauce + peastop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,109 recipes
Lamb + eggtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,204 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).