Name: Scalloped Mutton
Ingredients: 1 pound cold roast or boiled mutton; 1 pint broth; ½ onion; salt; pepper; 2 tablespoons butter; 4 tablespoons flour; mashed potatoes; 1 egg yolk

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scalloped Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

Cut the mutton into very small pieces.
Stew the bone for at least 30 minutes to make a pint of broth.

Make the filling

Strain the broth and simmer it with the mutton, onion, salt, and pepper for 15 minutes.
Rub together the butter and flour for 2-3 minutes, then add to the mutton mixture.

Assemble and bake

Butter the bottom of a 2-quart pudding dish.
Layer in mashed potatoes, half the mutton, a thicker layer of potatoes, the remaining mutton, and a final layer of potatoes.
Glaze the top layer with the egg yolk and bake until thoroughly heated.

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.

Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton: Provides the main meat filling, which is already cooked and needs only reheating.
Butter and flour: Rubbed together to thicken the broth so the filling becomes saucy rather than watery.
Egg yolk: Brushed on the top layer to help it brown and give a glossy finish.
Mashed potatoes: Forms the layers around the meat and holds the filling together as it bakes.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, butter, flour, potato, egg):

Chivefits better
Asparagusfits better
Leekfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, butter, flour, potato, egg. 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.