Name: Mutton Chops
Ingredients: Mutton chops (with one bone in each); Pepper; Coarse sea salt; ½ cup hot water; 1 tablespoon Katee (or butter); 1 tablespoon ketchup

Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,442 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mutton Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut mutton chops from the rack, ensuring each has one bone.
Season the chops with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Cook and serve

Broil the chops on a gridiron until cooked to your liking.
In a saucepan, combine hot water, Katee, and ketchup; bring to a boil.
Pour the gravy over the chops before serving.
Twist curled paper on the end of the bone for presentation.

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 + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,442 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,781 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mutton + ketchuptop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together367 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).
Butter + ketchuptop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,784 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mutton chops: Form the main body of the dish, cooking to tenderness under the grill.
Katee: Adds richness and fat to the gravy, giving it a smooth, savoury body.
Ketchup: Adds sweetness and acidity to the gravy, balancing its savoury flavour.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.