Name: Mutton Patties, a LA Windsor
Ingredients: Mutton (cooked and shredded); Butter; Fine fresh-made bread crumbs; Eggs (beaten); Hog's lard (for frying)

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mutton Patties, a LA Windsor

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the mutton for five minutes over a stove fire.
Transfer the mutton to a sauté pan greased with butter and cover with buttered paper; let it cool completely.
Turn the mixture out onto a sheet of paper and cut out circular shapes using a tin cutter (1.5 inches in diameter).
Roll the cutouts in fine bread crumbs, dip in beaten egg, and coat with bread crumbs again.
Smooth the bread crumbs on the timbales by rolling and patting them.
Use a smaller cutter to make a slight incision in the center of each timbale.
Heat hog's lard in a deep frying pan and carefully immerse the timbales to fry until bright yellow.
Drain the fried timbales on a cloth and remove them carefully with a fork.

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 + breadtop 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).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,781 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).