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Mutton Soup with Tapioca

A hearty soup made from lean mutton, bones, vegetables, and tapioca pearls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 with Tapioca

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Combine the mutton and bones with 2 quarts of cold water in a large pot.

  2. Heat slowly until boiling.

  3. Add 2 quarts of hot water from the kettle.

  4. Chop the vegetables.

  5. Cover the vegetables with cold water.

  6. Once the vegetables begin to simmer, discard the first water and replenish with hot water.

  7. Cook until the vegetables are soft.

  8. Cook the meat steadily for 5 hours with the pot lid on.

  9. Strain the soup into a large bowl and let it cool to remove the fat.

  10. Skim off the fat and return the liquid to the pot.

Finish the soup

  1. Season the soup with pepper and salt, then bring to a boil.

  2. Add the cooked vegetables with their liquid.

  3. Heat together for 10 minutes.

  4. Strain again and bring to a slow boil.

Add the tapioca and serve

  1. Soak the tapioca in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Cook the tapioca in boiling water until clear, stirring often.

  3. Gradually stir the tapioca into the soup until dissolved.

  4. Serve with grated cheese on the side.

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

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat flavour and, as it simmers, gives the broth its body.
Bones
Release gelatin and savoury flavour into the broth during the long simmer.
Tapioca
Thickens the soup as its starch gelatinises, giving it a lightly silky body.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour to the broth.
Turnips
Add a mild, slightly sweet vegetable flavour and body to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat after cooling. Fat that is left in the soup stays greasy on the palate. Cooling the strained broth lets the fat rise and solidify so it can be lifted off cleanly.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, turnip, carrot, celery, parsley, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, turnip, carrot, celery, 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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