Name: Boiled Necks of Mutton, a L’anglaise
Ingredients: 2 necks of mutton; water; ¼ teaspoon salt; 2-3 carrots; 2-3 turnips; mashed turnips for garnish; tinned carrots for garnish; gravy for serving; caper sauce for serving

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 ↓

Boiled Necks of Mutton, a L’anglaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the necks

Saw off the scrap of the necks and shorten the rib bones to 4 inches. Detach the spine bone from the neck and saw off the remaining spine.
Pare the fat smooth.

Boil and dish

Boil the necks in a stewpan with water, salt, carrots, and turnips for about 2 hours.
Dish the necks so the uncovered ends of the rib bones fall between each other.
Garnish with mashed turnips and tinned carrots around the dish.
Serve with gravy and caper sauce in sauceboats.

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).
Mutton + carrottop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,878 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mutton + turniptop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,558 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Turnip + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together943 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Carrot + saucetop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,509 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton necks: Provide the meat, which becomes tender through long gentle boiling.
Carrots: Add gentle sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid.
Turnips: Add a mild, slightly sweet flavour to the cooking liquid and garnish.