Name: Lamb Cutlets with Tendrons
Ingredients: lamb cutlets; tendrons of the breast of lamb; coarse sea salt; pepper; breadcrumbs; fresh butter; turnips or tomato sauce

Why it works: Pepper and turnip are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,252 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lamb Cutlets with Tendrons

Ingredients

Directions

Season the lamb cutlets with coarse sea salt and pepper.
Cook the cutlets until three parts done, then place them on a dish to cool slightly.
Breadcrumb the cutlets and broil them in a covered stewpan over low heat with a bit of fresh butter.
Serve the braised tendrons in the center of the dish, surrounded by the cutlets.
Pour turnips or tomato sauce over the center.

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.

Pepper + turniptop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,252 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,165 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lamb + turniptop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together276 recipes

Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).
Lamb + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,232 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).