Name: Mutton Chops
Ingredients: Mutton chops, at least 1 inch thick; Coarse sea salt; Black pepper; Soft butter

Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,442 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mutton Chops

Ingredients

Mutton chops, at least 1 inch thick
Coarse sea salt
Black pepper
Soft butter

Directions

Trim excess fat from the mutton chops and grease a broiler with some mutton fat.
Place the chops on the broiler, keeping them at a distance from the gas flame.
Turn the chops every 10 seconds for the first 5 minutes until well seared.
Continue to turn occasionally until cooked through, about 15 minutes total.
Arrange the chops on a hot serving platter, spread with soft butter, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

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.

Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,442 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,781 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).