Name: Roast Breast of Lamb
Ingredients: Breast of lamb; Stale bread crumbs; Minced parsley; Salt; Pepper; Watercresses; Mint sauce

Why it works: Parsley and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 469 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Roast Breast of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Select a nice breast of lamb.
Place it before a clear fire.
Mix stale bread crumbs, minced parsley, salt, and pepper thoroughly.
After about 15 minutes, when the fat begins to melt, sprinkle the mixture evenly over the surface.
Skim the fat from the gravy when done.
Strain the gravy over the joint.
Garnish with watercresses and serve with hot mint sauce.

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 + watercresstop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together469 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,198 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + watercresstop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together983 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Pepper + minttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,372 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, bread, parsley, pepper, watercress, sauce):

Capersfits better
Tarragonfits better
Thymefits better
Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, bread, parsley, pepper, watercress, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.