Name: Breaded Mutton Chops
Ingredients: 4 mutton chops; Salt to taste; Black pepper to taste; ¼ teaspoon ground cloves; Oil for dipping; 1 cup bread crumbs; 2 tablespoons fresh butter; Fine herbs (such as parsley, thyme, or chives)

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Breaded Mutton Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Rub the mutton chops with salt, pepper, and ground cloves.
Dip the chops in oil, then coat them with bread crumbs.

Cook and serve

Grill the chops over a clear fire for 10 minutes.
Serve plain or with a sauce made of melted butter and fine herbs.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,768 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,488 recipes

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

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 that is cooked and served.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp, golden coating on the outside of the chops.
Fresh butter: Adds richness and flavour to the optional sauce served with the chops.

Swap the clove

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

Thymefits better
Marjoramfits better
Sagefits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, bread, butter, parsley. 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.