Name: Chine or Saddle of Mutton Roasted
Ingredients: 1 chine or saddle of mutton; pickles; slices of bacon; brains; parsley; butter; gravy sauce; fried smelts; asparagus

Why it works: Sauce and smelt match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 103 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Chine or Saddle of Mutton Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Roast the chine or saddle of mutton until cooked through.
Boil the brains, then mash them with parsley and butter.
Slice the tongue and lay it on top of the mashed brains.
Serve with pickles and gravy sauce.
Garnish with fried smelts and asparagus.

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.

Sauce + smelttop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together103 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Parsley + asparagustop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together566 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, parsley, butter, sauce, smelt):

Shallotfits better
Onionfits better
Carrotfits better
Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, parsley, butter, sauce, smelt. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.