Why it works: Capers and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Mutton Troth
Ingredients
Directions
Make the caper sauce
Mix flour, water, and butter in a cup.
Pour the mixture into a small saucepan and stir until it boils.
Remove from heat and add capers and caper vinegar; mix well.
Pour part of the sauce over the meat and reserve the rest for serving.
Finish and serve
Strain the remaining vegetables through a fine sieve, discarding the fat.
Boil the strained liquor and add chopped parsley; serve in a hot tureen.
For invalids, make broth without vegetables or use half the quantity.
Serve a tender mutton chop with the broth and small pieces of toasted bread.
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.
-
Capers + parsleytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,550 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,024 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,488 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Thickens the butter and water into a smooth, pourable sauce as it heats.
- Butter
- Adds richness and body to the sauce, carrying flavour across the mixture.
- Capers
- Add a sharp, briny flavour that cuts through the richness of the mutton.
- Caper vinegar
- Adds acidity, brightening the sauce and sharpening the caper flavour.
- Mutton chop
- Provides the main meat, whose rich fat and savoury flavour the sauce complements.
The step that matters
Stirring the flour mixture until it boils. Flour thickens only when heated to boiling and stirred, so stopping early leaves a thin sauce and stirring unevenly can leave lumps.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, capers, vinegar, mutton, bread):
- Parsleythe original
- Tarragonfits about as well
- Garlicfits less well
- Turmericfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, capers, vinegar, mutton, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
More mutton with caper sauce recipes
You might also like
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
White Bread80 recipes
Bread Omelette60 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.