Name: Mutton and Lamb Chops
Ingredients: Mutton or lamb chops; Salt; Pepper; Butter; Toast points; Parsley or watercress; Peas; French-fried potatoes; Potato balls or straws

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mutton and Lamb Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Broil the chops over hot coals, turning every ten seconds to sear and keep the juices inside.
Cook for ten minutes for one-inch thick chops; for rare, cook for eight minutes.
Place on a hot platter and season with salt, pepper, and butter.
Garnish with toast points and parsley or watercress, or serve with peas, French-fried potatoes, or potato balls.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Peas + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,016 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Parsley + peastop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,885 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, butter, parsley, fried potato, potato):

Beansfits about as well
Chickpeafits about as well
Peasthe original
Walnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, butter, parsley, fried potato, potato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.