Name: Broiled Mutton Chops Around a Mound of Spinach
Ingredients: mutton chops; coarse sea salt; black pepper; flour; spinach

Why it works: Pepper and spinach are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,400 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Broiled Mutton Chops Around a Mound of Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Season the mutton chops with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Dredge the chops in flour.
Broil the chops until cooked to your liking.
Prepare a mound of spinach as a bed for the chops.
Serve the broiled mutton chops on top of the spinach.

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.

Pepper + spinachtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,400 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Flour + spinachtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,564 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,442 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Mutton + spinachtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together177 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).