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Mutton Soup a LA Squirrel

A hearty mutton soup simmered for hours with onion, salt, pepper, and optional thickening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mutton Soup a LA Squirrel

2 quarts of soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the mutton properly.

  2. Place the cleaned mutton in a pot with enough water to make 2 quarts of soup.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the mutton for about 4 hours before dinner.

  2. Cut the onion about 20 minutes before serving and add it to the soup.

  3. Season the soup with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  4. Add a little thickening to the soup ten minutes before serving, if desired.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Long simmering breaks down connective tissue in the neck and shanks, giving the soup body and rich flavor.
Silver onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens and releases flavor into the broth.
Thickening
Starch or similar thickener adds body to the broth when stirred in near the end.

The step that matters

Boiling the mutton for about 4 hours. The mutton must simmer long enough for collagen in the neck and shanks to break down into gelatin. Cooking too briefly leaves the meat tough and the broth thin.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, 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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