Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Boiled Leg of Mutton
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the leg of mutton in clear water until tender, seasoning the water with coarse sea salt.
Serve with egg sauce and garnish with parsley, sliced lemons, or sour jelly.
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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Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,037 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Mutton + parsleytop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,915 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Mutton + lemontop 34% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together888 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
- Leg of mutton
- Is the main cut; boiling slowly softens its connective tissue until tender.
“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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