Name: Breast of Lamb with Cucumbers
Ingredients: 1 breast of lamb; good gravy; mixed spices; flour; stewed cucumbers

Why it works: Flour and cucumber are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Breast of Lamb with Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Remove the chine bone from the breast of lamb and notch it well.
Stew the lamb in good gravy for 20 minutes.
Drain the lamb and score it.
Season with mixed spices and dredge with flour.
Cook in a Dutch oven or on a grill.
Serve on a bed of stewed cucumbers.

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.

Flour + cucumbertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Lamb + cucumbertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together269 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lamb + flourtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,402 recipes

Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).