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Soup SantSy Removed with a Leg of Mutton and Harricot Beans

A soup made with a leg of mutton, haricot beans, water, salt, pepper, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,733 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Soup SantSy Removed with a Leg of Mutton and Harricot Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the leg of mutton by seasoning it with salt and pepper.

Simmer

  1. Place the mutton in a pot with water and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the haricot beans and herbs to the pot.

  3. Simmer until the mutton is tender and the beans are cooked.

Serve

  1. 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. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 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 + beanstop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together131 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat and rich flavor, and its connective tissue softens into gelatin during long simmering.
Harricot beans
Their starch softens and thickens the broth, giving the soup body and substance.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the mutton is tender. Mutton has tough connective tissue that needs long, gentle heat to break down into gelatin. A hard, rapid boil tightens the muscle fibres and makes the meat stringy, so keep the pot at a low simmer.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Peasfits about as well
  2. Beansthe original
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Walnutfits less well

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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