Name: Mutton Cutlets in Aspic
Ingredients: 1 quart aspic jelly; 1 hard boiled egg; 1 tin pâté de foie gras; 4 oz boiled rice; 6 mutton cutlets; a few drops carmine

Why it works: Rice and mutton are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,019 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets in Aspic

Ingredients

Directions

Rub the pâté through a sieve, discarding the truffles.
Spread the pâté over the mutton cutlets.
Cut out shapes from the aspic jelly and place them over the mutton cutlets.
Slice thin rounds from the hard boiled egg, ham, and truffles, and arrange them on the cutlets.
Melt a small amount of jelly and pour it over the arranged cutlets.

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.

Rice + muttontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,019 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Egg + muttontop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,648 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + ricetop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,350 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).