Name: A Dish of Lamb
Ingredients: 1 neck of lamb; breadcrumbs; herbs; seasoning; potatoes; butter; cream

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A Dish of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the neck of lamb into steaks and chop each bone short to make the steaks round.
Season the steaks with breadcrumbs, herbs, and seasoning, then fry until golden brown.
Mash the potatoes with butter and cream, then place them in the center of a serving dish, raised high.
Arrange the steaks around the potatoes, stacking them with the small bones facing upward.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together520 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Lamb + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,232 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).