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Mutton Soup with Tapioca

A hearty mutton soup simmered with 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 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. Cover the vegetables with cold water.

  5. Once the vegetables begin to simmer, discard the first water.

  6. Replenish the pot with hot water.

  7. Stew the vegetables until they are soft and broken down.

  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 allow the fat to rise to the surface.

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

  11. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt, then bring to a boil.

  12. Remove any scum that forms.

Finish the soup

  1. Chop the vegetables.

  2. Add the vegetables and their cooking liquid to the soup.

  3. Heat together for 10 minutes.

  4. Strain again.

  5. Before adding the tapioca, bring the soup to a slow boil.

Add 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 cooked 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 rich meat flavor and body as it simmers slowly into the broth.
Bones
Release gelatin and savory flavor into the water during long simmering, giving the broth body.
Tapioca
Starch that thickens the soup as it cooks and turns clear when fully gelatinized.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aroma to the broth as they soften during stewing.
Turnips
Contribute mild sweetness and body to the broth as they soften during stewing.

The step that matters

Cook the tapioca in boiling water until clear. Tapioca must be fully cooked to become clear and tender; stirring often prevents it from sticking and clumping on the bottom of the pot.

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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