Why it works: Mutton and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,781 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Collops of Mutton
Ingredients
Directions
Cut the mutton into thin slices (collops).
Heat a frying pan and add butter.
Fry the collops in the butter until cooked through.
Serve hot.
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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Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,781 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Mutton
- Provides the main protein, which firms and browns as it cooks through.
- Butter
- Conducts heat to the slices and adds richness and browning in the pan.
The step that matters
Fry the collops until cooked through. Thin slices cook quickly, so overcooking can make them dry and tough, while undercooking leaves the meat unsafe. Judging doneness by sight and firmness helps achieve even cooking throughout.
“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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