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Lamb Soup

A lamb broth with rice and an egg‑milk mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lamb Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Buy a whole piece of lamb, and have it cut into chops, using the rest for soup.

  2. Wash the lamb thoroughly.

  3. Rub the outside with a coarse towel.

  4. Place the lamb in a pot with cold water.

  5. Boil until the meat falls off the bones.

  6. Strain the broth.

  7. Let it cool.

  8. Remove all fat before using.

Make the soup

  1. Steam the rice until very tender.

  2. Place the rice in a tureen.

  3. Beat the egg in a bowl.

  4. Stir the egg into the milk with the flour until smooth.

  5. Gradually add some of the hot broth to the egg mixture to prevent curdling.

  6. Combine the egg mixture with the soup.

  7. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  8. Serve immediately.

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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  2. Lamb + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together439 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

  4. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

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

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb chops
Provide the meat and rich flavour that the broth is built on.
Rice
Adds body and a tender, starchy texture to the soup.
Egg
Thickens the mixture and gives the soup a smooth, creamy body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavour of the egg-thickened soup.
Flour
Stabilises the egg and milk mixture so it blends smoothly and resists separating.

The step that matters

Adding the hot broth to the egg mixture. Egg proteins set and curdle when heated quickly. Adding hot broth gradually to the beaten egg and milk raises its temperature slowly, so the mixture stays smooth when combined with the soup.

“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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