Name: Hashed Mutton
Ingredients: 1 pat of butter; 2 potatoes; 1 rabbit

Why it works: Butter and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Hashed Mutton

Ingredients

1 pat of butter
2 potatoes
1 rabbit

Directions

Melt the butter in a pan.
Roast the potatoes until tender.
Roast the rabbit until cooked through.

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.

Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + rabbittop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together58 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + rabbittop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,448 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).