Name: Neck of Mutton
Ingredients: 1 Neck of Mutton, boned; Dried sage, powdered; 1 Carrot

Why it works: Sage and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 480 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Neck of Mutton

Ingredients

1 Neck of Mutton, boned
Dried sage, powdered
1 Carrot

Directions

Prepare and roast

Sprinkle the boned neck of mutton with powdered dried sage.
Roll the mutton and roast it until cooked through.

Make the gravy

For gravy, stew the bones and trimmings gently to extract flavor.
Add the same herbs and a carrot to the stew for mutton broth.

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.

Sage + carrottop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together480 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Mutton + carrottop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,878 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mutton + sagetop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together107 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of mutton: Provides the main meat, whose fat and connective tissue keep the roast moist and flavorful.
Dried sage: Adds a savory, aromatic herbal flavor that penetrates the meat's surface.
Carrot: Adds subtle sweetness and body to the mutton broth as it simmers.