Name: Mutton Kebbobed
Ingredients: 1 loin of mutton; 2 tablespoons chopped parsley; a little thyme; 1 nutmeg, grated; 1 teacup bread crumbs; 2 eggs

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mutton Kebbobed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Joint the loin of mutton well.
Mix the parsley, thyme, grated nutmeg, bread crumbs, and eggs together.

Stuff and cook

Put the dressing between each joint of the mutton.
If there is a large flap, place some dressing inside and secure it with skewers.
Roast the mutton for one hour.

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.

Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,062 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,907 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,488 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the bread crumb dressing so it holds together around the mutton.
Bread crumbs: Absorb moisture and give the dressing body so it stays in place while roasting.
Loin of mutton: Provides the main meat, which is jointed so the dressing can sit between the pieces.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, parsley, nutmeg, bread, egg):

Marjoramfits better
Cinnamonfits about as well
Capersfits about as well
Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, parsley, nutmeg, bread, egg. 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.