Name: Lamb
Ingredients: Fore quarter of lamb; Mint sauce; Salad; Potatoes; Green peas; Spinach

Why it works: Mint and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Choose a fore quarter of lamb, ensuring it is fresh.
Roast or bake the lamb until cooked through.
Serve with mint sauce and a salad.
Accompany with potatoes, green peas, and spinach.

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.

Mint + peastop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,137 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Potato + spinachtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together646 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Peas + spinachtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together550 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Potato + peastop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,016 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Lamb + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together520 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, sauce, potato, peas, spinach):

Garlicfits better
Cuminfits better
Capersfits better
Mintthe original

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