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Muttox Soup

A hearty soup made with mutton, barley, celery, parsley, leek, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 142 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Muttox Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Cut the mutton into 4 or 5 pieces.

  2. Wash the mutton in cold water.

  3. Place the mutton in a soup kettle and cover the kettle with cold water.

Simmer the soup

  1. Bring the soup to a boil and skim off any foam that rises to the surface.

  2. Cover the kettle and simmer the soup slowly for 5 hours.

  3. After 3 hours, add the washed barley and let the soup boil for 2 hours.

  4. Add the celery, parsley, and leek.

Finish and season

  1. Remove all the meat and bones from the soup.

  2. Skim the soup.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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. Barley + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together142 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

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

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

  4. Celery + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together759 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of old mutton
Provides the main meat flavour and body as its collagen softens into the broth.
Barley
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch releases during long simmering.
Leek
Adds a mild onion-like aroma and sweetness to the broth.
Celery
Contributes a fresh, savoury aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam after the boil. Foam carries impurities and fat that rise as the liquid heats. Removing it early keeps the broth clearer and less greasy, and the later skimming removes more fat.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, barley, celery, leek, pepper):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Marjoramfits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, barley, celery, leek, 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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