Name: A Uncii of Mutton Roasted
Ingredients: 1 whole mutton leg; ½ cup vinegar; pounded pepper; pounded ginger; cloves; port wine

Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Uncii of Mutton Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Wash the mutton leg with vinegar and wipe it dry every day.
Rub with pounded pepper and ginger if necessary.
Stick cloves into the knuckle of the leg.
24 hours before roasting, place the leg in a pan and pour port wine over it, turning frequently to soak evenly.
Cut off the knuckle close to the joint and nick the cramp-bone to help the meat plump up.
Trim off the thick skin at the flank and round off the corner of the fat.

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.

Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,800 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Vinegar + port winetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together598 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Clove + port winetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together914 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, vinegar, pepper, clove, port wine):

Allspicefits better
Marjoramfits better
Cinnamonfits about as well
Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, vinegar, pepper, clove, port wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.