Name: Harrico of Mutton
Ingredients: best end of a neck of mutton; 2 quarts of water; 1 large carrot, sliced; 2 turnips, cut into square pieces

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Harrico of Mutton

Ingredients

best end of a neck of mutton
2 quarts of water
1 large carrot, sliced
2 turnips, cut into square pieces

Directions

Prepare the mutton

Cut the mutton into chops, in single ribs, and flatten them.

Brown and stew

Fry the chops until they are light brown.
Place the fried chops in a large saucepan with 2 quarts of water and the sliced carrot.
Stew for 15 minutes, then add the turnips and continue cooking.

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.

Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Mutton + carrottop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,878 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mutton + turniptop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,558 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).