Why it works: Turnip and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 320 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Broiled Mutton Chops, Garnished
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Trim the racks of mutton, removing the chine bone and gristle.
Cut the mutton into cutlets and season with salt and pepper.
Dip the cutlets into melted butter.
Cook and serve
Broil the cutlets until medium done and golden in color.
Serve on a triangle of toast, garnished with your choice of sauce or sides.
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.
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Turnip + spinachtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together320 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Potato + spinachtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together646 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,798 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pepper + spinachtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,400 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Tomato + spinachtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,350 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Racks of mutton
- Provides the meat for the chops, whose fat and connective tissue soften and flavour the cut during cooking.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat that carries seasoning and promotes golden browning under the broiler.
- Toast
- Serves as a base that soaks up meat juices and gives a crisp contrast.
The step that matters
Broil the cutlets until medium done and golden in color. Broiling at high heat browns the surface through Maillard reactions while the interior stays tender. Leaving the cutlets too long dries them out, and too short leaves them underdone or pale.
Swap the turnip
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, butter, sauce, tomato, potato, spinach):
- Capsicumfits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Chivefits better
- Turnipthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, butter, sauce, tomato, potato, spinach. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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.
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