Name: Hashed Mutton
Ingredients: 1 pat of butter; 2 potatoes, roasted; 1 mutton leg, hashed

Why it works: Butter and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Hashed Mutton

Ingredients

1 pat of butter
2 potatoes, roasted
1 mutton leg, hashed

Directions

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat.
Add the hashed mutton and cook until heated through.
Serve with roasted potatoes on the side.

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 + potatotop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + muttontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,781 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Potato + muttontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together293 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Adds fat and richness, helping the mutton taste savoury and feel moist as it heats.
Hashed mutton: Provides the main meat, which is cooked only until heated through.
Potatoes: Serve on the side as a starchy accompaniment to the hashed mutton.