Name: Escalloped Mutton
Ingredients: mutton; Saratoga potatoes; celery; chocolate; bread; hard sauce

Why it works: Potato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,047 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Escalloped Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton by cutting it into small pieces.
Layer the mutton in a baking dish.
Slice the Saratoga potatoes thinly and layer them over the mutton.
Add chopped celery for flavor.
Prepare a chocolate sauce and drizzle it over the layers.
Bake until the mutton is cooked through and the potatoes are tender.
Serve with bread and hard sauce on the side.

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.

Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,047 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,488 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together434 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Celery + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,110 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Mutton + potatotop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together293 recipes

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

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

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, potato, chocolate, bread, sauce):

Garlicfits about as well
Capersfits about as well
Nutmegfits about as well
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, potato, chocolate, bread, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.