Why it works: Bread and mutton are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,488 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Mutton Diet
Ingredients
Directions
Serve 1 lb. of bread.
Cook ½ lb. of roast mutton (boiled on Tuesdays).
Prepare ½ lb. of potatoes.
Serve 1 pint of soup on boiled meat days.
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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Bread + muttontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,488 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Mutton + meattop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together936 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Potato + meattop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together786 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Bread + meattop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,924 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Bread + potatotop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together434 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bread
- Provides starch and bulk as the base of the meal.
- Roast mutton
- Supplies protein and savoury flavour as the main meat component.
- Potatoes
- Adds starch and bulk to make the meal more filling.
- Soup
- Adds moisture and liquid to the meal on boiled meat days.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, mutton, meat):
- Tomatofits about as well
- Shallotfits about as well
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, mutton, meat. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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