Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Roast Mutton
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Season the mutton with salt and pepper.
Place the mutton in a roasting pan and spread butter over it.
Roast and serve
Roast in the oven until cooked to your desired doneness, basting occasionally.
Serve with warm milk on the side.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,781 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Mutton + milktop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together814 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Mutton
- Forms the main body of the dish, and its cooked texture is the centrepiece.
- Butter
- Adds fat that keeps the surface moist and helps it brown in the oven.
The step that matters
Roast to your desired doneness. Mutton is a lean meat, and past the target doneness its muscle fibres tighten and lose moisture, so it turns dry and tough. Checking for doneness before the meat is overcooked keeps it juicy. Basting helps keep the surface from drying out while it roasts.
“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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