Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Haunch of Mutton
Ingredients
Directions
Cover the haunch with two large sheets of well-greased paper.
Place it in a cradle-spit and roast it before a good fire for about 2 hours and 15 minutes, keeping it 18 inches from the fire.
Baste the joint with dripping every 5 minutes.
About 10 minutes before removing, take off the paper, dredge with flour, sprinkle with salt, and drizzle with dissolved butter to achieve a brown frothy appearance.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,781 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Mutton + flourtop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,695 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
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