Name: Mutton Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 cup finely chopped rare mutton; Coarse sea salt to taste; Tobasco sauce to taste; 1 tablespoon capers, finely chopped; 4 tablespoons mayonnaise dressing; Thin slices of bread

Why it works: Sauce and capers work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 678 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Mutton Sandwiches

Ingredients

1 cup finely chopped rare mutton
Coarse sea salt to taste
Tobasco sauce to taste
1 tablespoon capers, finely chopped
4 tablespoons mayonnaise dressing
Thin slices of bread

Directions

Prepare

Season the chopped mutton with coarse sea salt and Tabasco sauce.
In a bowl, mix the chopped capers with the mayonnaise dressing.

Assemble

Spread the mayonnaise mixture on thin slices of bread.
Place a layer of the seasoned mutton between every two slices of bread.

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.

Sauce + caperstop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together678 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,488 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Capers + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together307 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Sauce + breadtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,934 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Mutton + saucetop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,087 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Rare mutton: Provides the main filling and meaty flavour of the sandwich.
Capers: Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the rich meat and mayonnaise.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and creaminess, moistening the bread and binding the caper mixture.

“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.