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Mutton Soup

A slow‑cooked mutton soup with carrots, turnips, onions, herbs, and barley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Mutton Soup

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mutton Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine the mutton, carrots, turnips, onions, sweet herbs, parsley, salt, pepper, and cold water.

  2. Simmer slowly for 4 to 5 hours.

  3. Skim off any fat that rises to the surface.

  4. Pass the soup through a sieve and return it to the pot.

  5. Bring the soup to a boil once.

Serve

  1. Serve with separately boiled barley.

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

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

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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
Gives the broth its meaty flavour and body as it simmers slowly for hours.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.
Turnips
Contribute mild sweetness and body as they soften during the long simmer.
Onions
Release sugars and savoury aromatics that deepen the flavour of the broth.
Barley (in the method)
Adds chewy texture and bulk when served alongside the soup.

The step that matters

Skim off the fat. Fat rising during a long simmer can make the soup greasy and cloudy. Removing it as it surfaces keeps the broth clean and light.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, turnip, parsley, 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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