Name: Boiled Mutton with Caper Sauce
Ingredients: 1 leg of mutton; 1 handful coarse sea salt; 1 pint milk; 2 tablespoons flour; 2 tablespoons butter; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste; 2 tablespoons capers (or mint sauce if preferred)

Why it works: Flour and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,024 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Mutton with Caper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Bring a pot of water to a boil and add a handful of coarse sea salt.
Wash the leg of mutton, remove the skin, and rub salt into the meat.

Cook

For rare mutton, cook for about 2 hours; for well-done, cook for 3 hours or longer, depending on size.
In a separate pot, boil the milk.
Thicken the milk with flour blended well, then add butter, salt, pepper, and capers (or mint sauce).

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.

Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,024 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + caperstop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,088 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton: Provides the main protein, which firms and becomes tender as it cooks through.
Flour: Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as its starch swells with heat.
Butter: Adds richness and smooth body to the sauce.
Milk: Forms the base of the sauce, giving it creaminess and mild sweetness.
Capers: Add sharp, briny acidity that cuts the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk with flour. Flour must be blended smoothly before it meets the hot milk, because loose clumps of starch cook into lumps that cannot be whisked out. Blending it first lets the starch disperse evenly so it thickens the sauce uniformly as it heats.

Swap the capers

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

Cardamomfits better
Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, milk, flour, butter, pepper. 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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Boiled Mutton with Caper Sauce