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A Baked Soup

A baked soup of mutton, vegetables, and herbs simmered in water with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

A Baked Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the jar

  1. Combine mutton, carrot, turnip, onion, tomatoes, peas, corn, and herbs in a stout stone jar.

  2. Add cold water, pepper, salt, and sugar.

  3. Top with butter bits rolled in flour.

  4. Seal the jar tightly, using a paste of flour and water to cover the crack.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the jar in a dripping pan filled with boiling water, and bake in the oven at 350°F (175°C). Add more boiling water to the pan as it evaporates.

  2. When ready to serve, pour the soup into a tureen without straining.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Lean meat that becomes tender and flavours the broth during slow baking.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the broth as they soften and break down.
Peas
Add sweetness and soft texture to the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the broth, with flour helping to slightly thicken it.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth as it softens in the broth.
Onion
Contributes savoury aroma and sweetness to the broth as it cooks.

The step that matters

Sealing the jar. A tight seal keeps steam and moisture inside so the soup cooks gently in its own juices. A crack lets liquid escape and can dry out the mutton, so the paste must close every gap.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

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