Name: Coteleties a LA Murillo
Ingredients: 1 best end of neck of mutton; coarse sea salt; butter; Milanaise sauce (thickly reduced); riz tomate (tomato rice)

Why it works: Tomato and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,990 recipes mention both. Both carry trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Choose a neck of mutton from a small sheep, free from excess fat.
Roast the neck of mutton as explained in the recipe.
Once done, divide it into cutlets.
Lay the cutlets on well-buttered paper in a buttered baking tin.
Mask the upper sides with thickly reduced Milanaise sauce.
Heat gently in the oven for 2-3 minutes.
Remove with a slice and arrange on a hot flat dish surrounded by riz tomate.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Tomato + ricetop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,990 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Sauce + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together5,468 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Mutton + ricetop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,019 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Mutton + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together3,781 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + ricetop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together9,587 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, sauce, rice):

Tomatothe original
Potatoabout as good a flavor fit
Asparagusabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, sauce, rice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).