Name: Canton of Lamb a LA Jardiniere
Ingredients: 4 lbs shoulder of lamb; 6 oz forcemeat; 1 carrot; 1 turnip; ½ pint string beans; ½ pint cauliflower flowerets; ½ pint green peas or asparagus heads; Salt

Why it works: Turnip and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 286 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Canton of Lamb a LA Jardiniere

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare a canton from the shoulder of lamb as directed in your cookbook.
Peel the carrot and turnip, then cut them into diamond shapes.
Cut the string beans into diamond shapes as well.
Cut the cauliflower into small flowerets and prepare the green peas or asparagus heads.
Boil all the vegetables separately in salted boiling water until tender, then place them in cold water until needed.
Once the lamb is done, make the sauce as directed in your cookbook, heat the jardiniere in it, and serve arranged around the canton.

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.

Turnip + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together286 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together290 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Turnip + beanstop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together400 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + beanstop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,443 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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 (lamb, carrot, turnip, beans, cauliflower):

Lentilsfits better
Chestnutfits about as well
Chickpeafits about as well
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, carrot, turnip, beans, cauliflower. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.