Name: Leg of Lamb or Mutton
Ingredients: leg of lamb or mutton; onion sauce; red currant jelly; mint sauce

Why it works: Red currant and mint work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Leg of Lamb or Mutton

Ingredients

leg of lamb or mutton
onion sauce
red currant jelly
mint sauce

Directions

Prepare the leg of lamb or mutton as you would for a shoulder, allowing for much longer cooking time.
Make the gravy from the drippings in the roasting tin.
Serve with onion sauce, red currant jelly, or mint sauce.

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.

Red currant + minttop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Lamb + minttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together772 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Lamb + oniontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,407 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Onion + minttop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,389 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + red curranttop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together258 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).