Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Mutton Chops Maintenon
Ingredients
Directions
Cut the neck of mutton into chops and flatten them with a rolling pin.
Bruise the yolk of a hard-boiled egg and mix it with chopped sweet herbs, grated bread, nutmeg, coarse sea salt, and pepper.
Cover the chops with the mixture and wrap each in a piece of well-buttered paper.
Broil the wrapped chops over a clear fire, turning them often.
Serve them in the paper or with a browned gravy.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together13,015 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,488 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,997 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, egg, bread, pepper, butter):
- Parsleyfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Sagefits less well
- Thymefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, egg, bread, pepper, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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