Name: A Boiled Leg of Mutton with Tongue and Turnips
Ingredients: 1 leg of mutton, trimmed; cold water, enough to cover the mutton; 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt; 2 medium onions, studded with 12 cloves; 1 large bunch of parsley; 1 sprig of thyme; 1 sprig of winter savory; 4-5 large carrots

Why it works: Thyme and winter savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 780 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

A Boiled Leg of Mutton with Tongue and Turnips

Ingredients

Directions

Wash the leg of mutton but do not soak it.
Place the mutton in a pot and cover it with cold water.
Bring the water to a boil over high heat, skimming off any scum that forms.
Once the water is clear, add the salt, onions, parsley, thyme, winter savory, and carrots.
Cook until the mutton is tender.

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.

Thyme + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together780 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together863 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Clove + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together690 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, clove, parsley, thyme, winter savory, carrot):

Shallotfits better
Turnipfits better
Parsnipfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, clove, parsley, thyme, winter savory, carrot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.