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Mutton Soup

A hearty soup made with mutton, peas, turnips, carrots, cabbage, lettuce, and herbs, finished with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Mutton Soup

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pea base

  1. In a saucepan, combine the bacon with enough water to boil the peas.

  2. Add the peas and boil until they become a pulp, then strain and set aside.

Make the soup

  1. Add more water to the saucepan and bring to a boil with the mutton pieces.

  2. Add the sliced turnips and carrots, and boil slowly for 1 hour.

  3. Incorporate sweet herbs, onions, cabbage, and lettuces, and stew for an additional 15 minutes.

  4. Remove the mutton, then add the fresh green peas and chopped parsley to the soup.

  5. Stir in the butter rolled in flour and stew until the green peas are cooked.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton neck
Gives the broth its rich, meaty flavour as it simmers.
Dried peas
Boil down to a pulp that thickens the soup and gives it body.
Butter rolled in flour
Flour and butter thicken the soup and add a smooth, rounded richness.
Turnips and carrots
Add sweetness and body to the broth during the long slow boil.

The step that matters

Boiling the peas to a pulp. Peas must be cooked until fully soft so they break down and thicken the liquid. If they stay firm, the strained base will be thin and grainy.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, turnip, carrot, onion, cabbage, lettuce, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, turnip, carrot, onion, cabbage, lettuce, parsley. 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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