Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Roast Mutton
Ingredients
Directions
Trim off any inedible parts from the mutton and wash it well; dry with a clean cloth.
Place the mutton in a roasting pan and add a little water to baste it initially.
Roast for about 12 minutes per pound in a strong fire.
Do not salt the meat at first to prevent it from hardening; salt it after it begins to roast well.
If it browns too quickly, cover it with a sheet of white paper.
Baste often, and about 15 minutes before it's done, lightly dredge with flour and baste with butter.
Skim the gravy and thicken slightly with brown flour before serving.
Serve with currant jelly or another tart sauce.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,856 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,077 recipes
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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