Name: Lamb Chops and Toast
Ingredients: Lamb chops; Butter; Parsley or cress or young celery; Lemon extract

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lamb Chops and Toast

Ingredients

Lamb chops
Butter
Parsley or cress or young celery
Lemon extract

Directions

Cut two ribs for each lamb chop, removing one bone and leaving meat on the other.
Flatten the chops with a cleaver and shape them like rib chops.
Cut thin, pear-shaped pieces of buttered toast.
Place a piece of toast in a dish, lean a broiled chop on it, add another piece of toast and another chop, arranging them at an angle.
Garnish with parsley, cress, or young celery.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lamb + parsleytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,322 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lamb + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,232 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).