Name: Stewed Mutton Chops
Ingredients: mutton chops; pepper; coarse sea salt; onion; water; gravy; butter; flour; shallot or ketchup (optional)

Why it works: Flour and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,081 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Stewed Mutton Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Season the mutton chops with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Place the chops in a stewpan with sliced onion.
Cover with water and a little gravy.
Cook on one side, then turn the chops and thicken the gravy with butter and flour.
Add shallot or ketchup if desired.
Stew for 20 to 25 minutes, but avoid overcooking to prevent toughness.

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.

Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,081 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,431 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,898 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the shallot

The recipe marks shallot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, onion, butter, flour):

Leekfits about as well
Potatofits about as well
Chivefits about as well
Shallotthe original

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