Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Neck of Mutton
Ingredients
Directions
Dress the neck of mutton slowly for about an hour.
Prepare vegetables as desired.
Baste the mutton well when first laid down and every 10 to 15 minutes thereafter.
Skewer a piece of well-greased writing paper over the mutton to keep in the juices.
After half an hour, turn the mutton so that the top and bottom become the sides.
Dredge the mutton lightly with flour after one hour, again when turning, and once more half an hour before it is done.
Add a little coarse sea salt just before serving.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,781 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Mutton + flourtop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,695 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).
Flour and butter 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
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