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Mutton and Rice Soup

A soup of mutton broth, rice, mint, salt, pepper, served with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mint and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,372 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mutton and Rice Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Bring the mutton broth to a boil.

  2. Add the rice and cook until it is half done.

  3. Stir in the chopped mint.

Season and serve

  1. Season with salt and pepper before serving.

  2. Serve with bits of toast.

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.

  1. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Rice + minttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together525 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Mutton + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Absorbs broth and softens, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Mutton broth
Forms the liquid base and carries the flavor of the whole soup.

The step that matters

Cook the rice until half done. Rice keeps absorbing liquid and softening after it leaves the heat. Stopping at half done leaves it from turning mushy as the soup stands and is served.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, rice, 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.

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