Name: Lamb Steaks
Ingredients: Lamb or mutton steaks; Butter; Bread crumbs; Crimped parsley; Salt; Pepper

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lamb Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Season the lamb or mutton steaks with salt and pepper.
Wrap the steaks in buttered paper.

Cook and serve

Broil the wrapped steaks until cooked to your liking.
Fry bread crumbs until golden brown.
Serve the steaks topped with fried bread crumbs and crimped parsley.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Lamb + parsleytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,322 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,165 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lamb + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together598 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb or mutton steaks: Forms the main body of the dish and is cooked through by broiling.
Butter: Fat that coats the buttered paper and adds richness and moisture during cooking.
Bread crumbs: Fried until golden brown, they add crisp texture and browning on top of the steaks.

“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.