Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,442 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Mutton Chops
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Trim off fat and skin from the mutton chops, leaving a bare piece of bone at the top of each.
Cook and serve
Broil the chops over a bright fire.
Season each chop with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and butter.
Arrange the chops on a hot dish, overlapping the large end of each chop over the small end of the next.
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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Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,442 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,781 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Mutton chops
- Provide the main meat, whose fat and skin are trimmed before cooking.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture to the chops as they cook.
The step that matters
Broil over a bright fire. Intense direct heat browns the surface quickly while the inside stays juicy. Too weak a fire lets the chops dry out before they brown.
“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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