Name: Roast Mutton Smothered in Onions
Ingredients: 1 small leg of mutton; 6 onions; clarified butter or leaf lard

Why it works: Onion and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Roast Mutton Smothered in Onions

Ingredients

1 small leg of mutton
6 onions
clarified butter or leaf lard

Directions

Roast the mutton

Roast the leg of mutton until cooked to your preference.

Prepare the onions

Peel and slice the onions.
Fry the onions in clarified butter or leaf lard until brown and tender.

Serve

Place the fried onions over the roast on a platter.

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.

Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,781 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,531 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton: Forms the main meat, cooked by roasting to the cook's preferred doneness.
Onions: Soften and brown when fried, adding sweetness and savory depth to the dish.
Clarified butter or leaf lard: Fat for frying the onions, carrying heat evenly and adding richness and browning.