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Lamb Soup

A hearty lamb soup with vegetables and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lamb Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a stewpan, combine the lamb, gravy (or water), and a small piece of beef.

  2. Boil gently for 1 hour.

Add vegetables and finish

  1. Add the carrots, turnips, onions, sweet herbs, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Continue boiling until the vegetables are tender.

  3. Serve hot.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lamb + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together896 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb
Provides the main meaty flavour, and its connective tissue softens during long gentle simmering.
Beef
Adds savoury depth to the broth as it simmers.
Carrots
Soften as they cook and add a mild sweetness to the soup.
Turnips
Soften during simmering and add a slightly peppery, earthy flavour.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 1 hour. A gentle simmer lets the lamb's connective tissue break down slowly, giving tender meat. A hard, rapid boil toughens the meat's proteins and makes the broth cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, beef, carrot, turnip, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, beef, carrot, turnip, 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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