Name: Baked Mutton Chops and Potatoes
Ingredients: 2-3 good potatoes per person; Salt; Pepper; Cold water; Loin chops (1 per person)

Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Mutton Chops and Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the potatoes

Wash, peel, and slice the potatoes into ¼‑inch thick slices.
Rinse the potato slices in cold water to clean them thoroughly.
Layer the potato slices in a baking dish, sprinkling salt and pepper between layers.
Add enough cold water to the dish to prevent burning.

Bake the potatoes and chops

Place the dish in a hot oven at 400 °F (200 °C) on the top shelf to brown the potatoes.
Trim excess fat from the loin chops.
Shape the chops with a skewer.
Once the potatoes are browned, remove the dish and place the chops on top.
Season the chops with more salt and pepper.
Add water to the chops if needed.
Return the dish to a cooler part of the oven at 350 °F (175 °C) for about 45 minutes.
Turn the chops to brown the other side when the top is crisp.
If the potatoes are drying out, add hot water gently to the dish.

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.

Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Form the base layers that soak up moisture and brown on top.
Loin chops: Provide the main meat, cooking through gently while the potatoes bake beneath.

The step that matters

Return the dish to a cooler part of the oven at 350 °F (175 °C). Moving the dish from the hot browning temperature to a lower one lets the chops cook through gently without scorching. Keeping some water in the dish helps prevent the potatoes and chops from drying out or burning during the longer bake.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.