Name: Soyer's New Mutton Chop
Ingredients: 1 middling-sized saddle of mutton; 1 shallot; good gravy

Why it works: Mutton and shallot work together. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 407 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Soyer's New Mutton Chop

Ingredients

1 middling-sized saddle of mutton
1 shallot
good gravy

Directions

Cut the saddle of mutton into chops, each half an inch thick, using a saw.
Mince the shallot and warm it in a little good gravy.
Pour the warm shallot gravy over the broiled chop before serving.

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.

Mutton + shallottop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together407 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton saddle: Provides the main meat, its rich flavour and the chewy texture of the chops.
Shallot: Adds a mild, sweet onion-like aroma that softens when warmed in the gravy.
Good gravy: Carries the shallot and adds moisture and savoury flavour over the broiled chop.

“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.