Name: Mutton Sandwich Filling
Ingredients: 1 cup cooked mutton, chopped fine; 1 tablespoon chopped capers or finely chopped sour gherkins; 2 tablespoons melted butter; ½ tablespoon lemon juice; 1 teaspoon finely chopped mint or ½ teaspoon curry powder; ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mutton Sandwich Filling

Ingredients

1 cup cooked mutton, chopped fine
1 tablespoon chopped capers or finely chopped sour gherkins
2 tablespoons melted butter
½ tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon finely chopped mint or ½ teaspoon curry powder
½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
¼ teaspoon pepper

Directions

Mix all the ingredients together.
Spread the mixture between slices of whole-wheat, white, or oatmeal bread.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lemon + minttop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,998 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Capers + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,222 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,372 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Capers + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,088 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked mutton: Provides the main savoury bulk and meaty flavour of the filling.
Melted butter: Adds fat and richness, binding the chopped ingredients and keeping the filling moist.
Capers or sour gherkins: Add sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness of the meat and butter.
Lemon juice: Adds brightness and acidity that lifts the flavour of the filling.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, capers, butter, lemon, pepper):

Parsleyfits better
Tarragonfits better
Thymefits better
Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, capers, butter, lemon, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.