Name: Haricot Mutton
Ingredients: 1 lb shoulder of mutton; 1 carrot; 6 small onions; 1 large onion; 1 small turnip; 2 tablespoons flour; 2 tablespoons dripping (or cooking fat); salt to taste; pepper to taste

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Haricot Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the mutton into neat pieces, about 2 inches square.
In a stew pan, heat the dripping until it begins to smoke.
Slice the large onion and fry it in the hot dripping until very brown.
Add the mutton pieces and fry until browned, removing them as they are done.
Pour out the dripping, leaving the onions in the pan.
In a small bowl, mix the flour, salt, and pepper with 1½ cups of water.
Stir well and pour the mixture into the pan with the onions.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,874 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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, carrot, turnip, flour, pepper):

Parsnipfits better
Leekfits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, turnip, flour, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.