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Mutton Soup

A savory soup made with mutton neck, water, onion, turnip, and optional rice or vermicelli, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Mutton Soup

Why it works: Turnip and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,842 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the mutton in a large pot with cold water, onion, and turnip.

  2. Boil slowly until the meat falls from the bones.

  3. Strain the soup and season to taste.

Serve

  1. Add a little cooked rice or vermicelli.

  2. Serve hot, garnished with chopped parsley on each plate or cup.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + ricetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of mutton
Releases meat flavor and gelatin into the broth as it simmers slowly.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness that rounds out the broth's flavor.
Turnip
Contributes mild, slightly sweet vegetable flavor to the broth.
Cooked rice or vermicelli
Adds body and starch, making the soup more filling.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until the meat falls from the bones. A gentle simmer lets collagen in the meat slowly break down into gelatin, giving body to the broth and tender meat. A hard boil can toughen the meat and cloud the soup.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

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