Name: Fricassee of Mutton
Ingredients: 2 lbs. Australian mutton; 2 oz. butter; 1½ oz. flour; Pepper to taste; Coarse sea salt to taste; 1 dozen mushrooms; About 1 pint milk; 3 oz. clarified dripping; Bread

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fricassee of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.
Stir in the flour, pepper, and salt until combined.
Pour in ¾ pint of cold milk and stir until it boils and thickens.
Peel the mushrooms and trim the stalks.
Add the mushrooms to the sauce and simmer until tender.
Wash the mushroom peels and stalks, then simmer them in a small saucepan with about ½ cup of milk to extract flavor.
Open the tin of mutton, remove the fat, and clarify it by boiling in water.
Cut the mutton into small pieces.
Cut bread into small squares, then cut them diagonally to make triangles.
Heat the clarified dripping in a frying pan.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).