Name: Mutton-Cutlets a LA Jardiniere
Ingredients: Mutton cutlets; Butter (about 2 tablespoons); Juice of ½ lemon; Fresh haricots; Green peas; Cauliflower sprigs; Various roots (cut into short lengths or shapes); Mushrooms

Why it works: Peas and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 313 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Mutton-Cutlets a LA Jardiniere

Ingredients

Directions

Boil fresh haricots, green peas, cauliflower, roots, and mushrooms in stock or good mutton broth until cooked.
In a separate pan, make a roux and add the cooked vegetables to simmer.
Fry the mutton cutlets in butter until browned.
Arrange the cutlets on a hot dish and pour the vegetable ragout over them.

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.

Peas + cauliflowertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together313 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Peas + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together890 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Lemon + cauliflowertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together179 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Lemon + peastop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,005 recipes

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

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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, peas, cauliflower, mushroom):

Plumfits about as well
Coconutfits about as well
Lemonthe original
Pumpkinfits about as well

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