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Summer Soup

A hearty soup of mutton, turnips, carrots, onions, lima beans, herbs, and optional vegetables, finished with egg and butter dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Summer Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, simmer the mutton neck or shoulder in water.

  2. Add sliced turnips, carrots, onions, and lima beans.

  3. Include parsley, sweet marjoram, and other herbs.

  4. If desired, add green corn, cauliflower, and pickled nasturtiums.

  5. Add the small dumplings made with egg and butter into the soup.

  6. Simmer the vegetables until they are tender.

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. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Turnip + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together367 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 or shoulder
Provides the main meat flavor and, as it simmers, savory richness to the broth.
Lima beans
Add starchy body and a soft, creamy texture to the soup.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color as they soften in the broth.
Turnips
Add a mild, slightly peppery flavor and firm vegetable bite.
Egg and butter dumplings
Add richness and a tender, dense texture that soaks up the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer the vegetables until they are tender. Undercooked root vegetables and beans stay firm and starchy, while overcooking turns them mushy and cloudy the broth. Gentle simmering softens them evenly without breaking them apart.

Swap the lima beans

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, turnip, carrot, onion, parsley, marjoram, corn. 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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