Why it works: Egg and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓
Mutton Chops
Ingredients
Directions
Trim the mutton chops of all fat and skin.
Dip each chop into beaten egg, then coat with rolled crackers.
Fry in hot fat or bake slowly in the oven for better flavor.
Serve with sliced lemon.
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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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Mutton + eggtop 26% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,648 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Mutton + lemontop 34% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together888 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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 lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, egg):
- Pumpkinfits about as well
- Red currantfits about as well
- Currantfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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