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Breast of Mutton

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Breast of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Trim excess fat from the breast of mutton.

  2. Roast the meat and serve with stewed cucumbers or cold with chopped parsley.

  3. Alternatively, half broil the meat, then grill it, covering with bread crumbs and herbs, and serve with caper sauce.

  4. If boned, remove excess fat, cover with bread, herbs, and seasoning, roll it up, boil, and serve with capers and butter.

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.

  1. Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cucumber + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Parsley + cucumbertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Sauce + caperstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, parsley, bread, sauce, capers, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, parsley, bread, sauce, capers, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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