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Summer Soup

A hearty soup made with mutton, turnips, carrots, onions, lima beans, herbs, and optional vegetables, finished with dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Summer Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, simmer the mutton in water until tender.

  2. Add the sliced turnips, carrots, onions, and lima beans.

  3. Stir in parsley, sweet marjoram, and other herbs.

  4. If using, add green corn, cauliflower, and pickled nasturtiums.

  5. Mix in the small dumplings and simmer until the vegetables are cooked.

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. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Turnip + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together367 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

Mutton neck or shoulder
Provides the main meat and rich flavor as it simmers into the broth.
Lima beans
Add starch and body, thickening the soup slightly as they cook.
Small dumplings
Made with egg and butter, they add soft, filling bulk to the soup.
Turnips
Contribute a mild, slightly peppery sweetness and firm texture as they cook.

The step that matters

Mix in the small dumplings and simmer until the vegetables are cooked. Dumplings cook quickly in simmering liquid and can turn dense or gummy if overcrowded or boiled too hard. Keeping the simmer gentle lets them set lightly while the vegetables finish cooking.

Swap the lima beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, turnip, carrot, onion, parsley, marjoram, corn):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, turnip, carrot, onion, parsley, marjoram, corn. 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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