Name: Mutton Cutlets with Reform Sauce
Ingredients: 6 French mutton cutlets; 1 egg; ½ cup fine bread crumbs; ½ cup finely chopped ham; hot fat for frying; mashed potatoes

Why it works: Bread and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets with Reform Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Roll the mutton cutlets in the egg.
Coat the cutlets in equal parts of fine bread crumbs and finely chopped ham.
Fry the cutlets in hot fat for about 4 minutes until golden brown.
Arrange the cutlets on a dish with mashed potatoes in the center.
Pour the sauce around the cutlets.

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 + hamtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,488 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Mutton + hamtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together430 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Bread + potatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together434 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).