Name: Mutton, Curried
Ingredients: 1 lb cooked mutton; 4 pints curry sauce; boiled rice

Why it works: Mutton and rice 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, Curried

Ingredients

1 lb cooked mutton
4 pints curry sauce
boiled rice

Directions

Remove all skin and fat from the mutton and cut it into thin slices.
Prepare the curry sauce as directed.
Add the mutton to the sauce and let it sit for at least 30 minutes.
Serve the curried mutton with well-boiled rice.

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.

Mutton + ricetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,019 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Sauce + ricetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,396 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Mutton + saucetop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,087 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).