Why it works: Mint and turnip work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 128 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Mutton Eoast
Ingredients
Directions
Roast the mutton to your desired doneness, preferably a little rare.
In a bowl, mix the chopped spear mint, vinegar, and sugar to make the mint sauce.
Serve the mutton with the mint sauce and turnip.
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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Mint + turniptop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together128 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Mint + vinegartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,376 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Vinegar + turniptop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together652 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Mutton + turniptop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,558 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Mutton
- Is the main protein, providing the meat, richness and savory flavor of the dish.
- Spear mint
- Adds a fresh, aromatic herbal flavor that contrasts with the rich meat.
- Vinegar
- Adds acidity that cuts through the richness of the mutton and brightens the sauce.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar in the mint sauce.
The step that matters
Roast the mutton to your desired doneness. Lean meat becomes dry and tough as it overcooks, so pulling it from the oven at a little rare keeps it juicy and tender.
Swap the mint
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, vinegar, sugar, turnip):
- Capersfits better
- Tarragonfits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- Mintthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, vinegar, sugar, turnip. 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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