Name: A Breast of Mutton with Force-meat
Ingredients: 1 breast of mutton; forcemeat (same as previous recipe); 2 beaten eggs; lemon (for garnish); gravy (for serving); butter (for basting); flour (for dusting); coarse sea salt (to taste); fresh parsley (finely chopped)

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

A Breast of Mutton with Force-meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Remove the skin from the breast of mutton and place the forcemeat underneath it.
Fasten the skin down.
Wash the breast with beaten eggs and dredge it with flour.

Roast and serve

Baste the meat with butter while roasting.
Sprinkle with salt and chopped parsley before serving.
Garnish with lemon and serve with gravy.

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Mutton breast: Forms the main body of the dish, carrying the stuffing and cooking to tender meat.
Forcemeat: Fills the cavity under the skin, adding moisture and rich flavour as the meat roasts.
Eggs: Act as a binding wash that helps the flour dusting adhere to the surface.
Flour: Dusted on the egg-washed surface, where it helps form a golden, browned crust.
Butter: Basting adds fat to the surface, promoting browning and a moist, rich exterior.

“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.