Name: Mutton-broth
Ingredients: 10 oz. of bread; ½ pint of milk; 8 oz. of neck of mutton (with bone); 1 pint of broth; barley

Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Mutton-broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Prepare 1 pint of broth.
Weigh 8 oz. of neck of mutton with the bone before cooking.

Cook and serve

Cook the mutton in the broth.
Serve the mutton in the broth with barley.
Enjoy with 10 oz. of bread and ½ pint of milk.

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.

Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Bread + muttontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,488 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + barleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together201 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + barleytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together598 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).
Mutton + barleytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together510 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of mutton: Provides the main meat flavour, and its bone adds body to the broth as it cooks.
Broth: Serves as the cooking liquid that carries the flavour of the mutton into the dish.
Barley: Adds bulk and a soft, chewy texture to the broth.
Bread: Adds starchy substance to go alongside the broth.

“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.