Name: Creamed Chops
Ingredients: lamb chops; pepper; coarse sea salt; hot milk; beaten egg; cracker crumbs; cottolene (or other frying oil)

Why it works: Lamb and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,165 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Creamed Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Trim and broil the lamb chops, then sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt. Set aside until warm enough to handle.
Prepare a stiff, cold paste using hot milk instead of stock.
Place a spoonful of the paste on a cold dish, lay a chop on it, and enfold the meat in the paste, flattening and molding it with your hand.
Ensure the bone projects beyond the covering. Quickly dip the covered chop into beaten egg, then into cracker crumbs.
Fry in deep, hot cottolene until golden brown. Serve immediately.

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.

Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,165 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lamb + milktop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together414 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + milktop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together26,984 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Lamb + eggtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,204 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).