Name: Lamb Cutlets and Spinach
Ingredients: Lamb cutlets; Coarse sea salt; Black pepper; Spinach

Why it works: Pepper and spinach are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,400 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Lamb Cutlets and Spinach

Ingredients

Lamb cutlets
Coarse sea salt
Black pepper
Spinach

Directions

Fry the lamb cutlets until they are a nice brown.
Season both sides with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Place the spinach on a serving dish and arrange the cutlets around the sides.

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.

Pepper + spinachtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,400 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Lamb + spinachtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together300 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,165 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).