Name: Leg of Lamb with Spinage
Ingredients: 1 dozen cabbage lettuces; butter; good consommé; cream sauce; 2 egg yolks; leg of lamb; cutlets for garnish

Why it works: Cabbage and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 622 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Leg of Lamb with Spinage

Ingredients

Directions

Pick the lettuces from the stalks and wash them in a large pan of water.
Blanch the lettuces, then drain them in a sieve for a few minutes.
Rub the lettuces through a plate with a wooden spoon and let them drain again for 1-2 hours.
In a small stewpan, stir the drained lettuces with a bit of butter until they begin to fry.
Add a little good consommé and reduce it, then mix in the cream sauce and let it boil for a few minutes.
Before serving, mix in the yolks of two eggs, ensuring the dish is hot.
Dress the lamb over the prepared spinach and garnish with the 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.

Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together622 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lettuce + lambtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together188 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, butter, cream, sauce, egg, lamb):

Asparagusfits better
Spinachfits better
Chivefits better
Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, butter, cream, sauce, egg, lamb. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.