Name: Roast Loin of Mutton
Ingredients: 5 lbs loin of mutton; scarlet beans; potatoes

Why it works: Mutton and potato work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 293 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Roast Loin of Mutton

Ingredients

5 lbs loin of mutton
scarlet beans
potatoes

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Season the loin of mutton with salt and pepper.

Roast

Place the mutton in a roasting pan and roast for about 1.5 to 2 hours, or until the internal temperature reaches 145°F (63°C).
While the mutton is roasting, prepare the scarlet beans and potatoes.

Serve

Serve the roast with the beans and potatoes.

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.

Mutton + potatotop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together293 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Scarlet bean + potatotop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together0 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Mutton + scarlet beantop 79% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together0 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Loin of mutton: Forms the main body of the dish, providing the meat that is roasted to be served.
Scarlet beans: Accompanying vegetable that adds separate texture alongside the roast.
Potatoes: Accompanying starch that adds bulk and soaks up the roasting juices.

The step that matters

Roast the mutton to the target internal temperature. Time is only an estimate, since loin size and oven behaviour vary. Checking that the internal temperature reaches 145°F (63°C) shows whether the meat is cooked through, and removing it at that point helps avoid drying out the lean meat.