Name: Loin of Mutton Stewed
Ingredients: 1.5 pints water; 2 tablespoons pyroligneous acid; 1 piece butter; sweet herbs; 1-2 onions; 2 tablespoons red wine

Why it works: Butter and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Loin of Mutton Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Remove the skin and bone the loin of mutton.
Roll the meat and place it in a stewpan with water.
Add pyroligneous acid, butter, sweet herbs, and onions.
Stew for nearly 4 hours.
Strain the gravy, add red wine, heat, and serve with jelly 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.

Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + red winetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,599 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Onion + red winetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,075 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).