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Dinner. Boiled Fowl, Baked Ham, Mutton Cutlets with Tomato Sauce, Peas, Potatoes.

A dinner featuring boiled fowl, baked ham, mutton cutlets with tomato sauce, peas, and potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,798 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dinner. Boiled Fowl, Baked Ham, Mutton Cutlets with Tomato Sauce, Peas, Potatoes.

Ingredients

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.

Prepare the meats

  1. Boil the fowl until cooked through.

  2. Bake the ham in the oven at 350°F (175°C) until heated.

  3. Season the mutton cutlets and pan-fry until browned.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat the tomato sauce and pour over the cooked cutlets.

  2. Boil the peas until tender.

  3. Boil the potatoes until soft, then mash or serve whole.

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.

  1. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Tomato + peastop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Peas + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,016 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Ham + muttontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton cutlets
Browning in the pan adds savory flavor and a crisp surface to the meat.
Tomato sauce
Adds moisture and acidity, coating the cutlets with a tangy sauce.
Potatoes
Soften when boiled, giving a starchy, filling base that can be mashed.
Peas
Turn tender when boiled, adding sweetness and a soft texture.

The step that matters

Pan-fry the mutton cutlets until browned. Browning relies on the Maillard reaction, which needs a hot, dry surface. Crowding the pan or leaving the meat wet causes steaming instead, leaving the cutlets pale and less flavorful.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, mutton, tomato, sauce, peas):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, mutton, tomato, sauce, peas. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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