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Melange Soup

A hearty soup made from mutton bones, vegetables, rice, and tomato juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Melange Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the mutton bones into dice and place them in a large pot with the cold water.

  2. Boil gently for 2 hours.

  3. Cook the carrots, turnips, and onion in hot water for 5 minutes to remove any strong taste.

  4. Cut the cooked vegetables into small squares.

Make the soup

  1. Add the rice, tomato juice, and cooked vegetables to the pot.

  2. Stew for 30 minutes or until the rice and vegetables are tender but not mushy.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt, then bring to a boil once more.

  4. Pour everything into a tureen and serve.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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 bones
Simmered for two hours, they release flavour and body into the broth.
Rice
Softens during stewing and thickens the soup slightly with its starch.
Tomato juice
Adds acidity and a tangy flavour that balances the rich broth.
Carrots
Add sweetness and soft texture as they cook down in the soup.
Turnips
Contribute a mild, slightly peppery flavour and soft texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Stewing until tender but not mushy. Vegetables and rice keep cooking in the hot broth, so overcooking breaks down their starches and cell structure, turning them soft and mushy and clouding the soup's texture. Checking them near the end of the 30 minutes prevents this.

Swap the onion

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

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

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