Name: Mutton, Roll of
Ingredients: few slices of carrot; few slices of turnip; 1 pint of stock made from bones and trimmings; 2 oz of butter; 1½ oz of flour; 1 tablespoon of mushroom ketchup or sharp sauce; salt to taste; pepper to taste

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton, Roll of

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer the bones, meat trimmings, turnip, and carrot in just enough water to cover them for at least 1 hour.
Strain the mixture and season the stock to taste.
Heat the butter in a pan and fry the onion until lightly browned.
Add the flour, stir, and cook slowly until brown.
Pour in ½ pint of stock and stir until boiling, then season to taste.
Add the mushroom ketchup and boil gently for 10 minutes.
Place the slices of meat in the prepared sauce and let it stand just below simmering point for at least 1 hour.
Arrange the meat neatly on a hot dish and strain the sauce over it.

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.

Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,874 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,252 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, butter, flour, mushroom, pepper):

Shallotfits about as well
Capsicumfits about as well
Spinachfits about as well
Turnipthe original

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