Name: Minced Mutton and Potatoes
Ingredients: 2 cups minced cooked mutton; 2 cups mashed or fried potatoes; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste

Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,442 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Minced Mutton and Potatoes

Ingredients

2 cups minced cooked mutton
2 cups mashed or fried potatoes
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

Directions

Combine the minced mutton and mashed or fried potatoes in a bowl.
Season with salt and pepper to taste and mix well until fully combined.
Serve warm.

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.

Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,442 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mutton + fried potatotop 43% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together0 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Fried potato + peppertop 79% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together0 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Minced cooked mutton: Provides the main protein and savory meaty flavor that anchors the dish.
Mashed or fried potatoes: Adds bulk and a soft, moist texture that binds the mixture together.

“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.