Skip to main content
Main

Mutton Soup

A hearty soup made by boiling a leg of mutton with salt, pepper, summer savory, and optional rice or noodles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Mutton Soup

Why it works: Pepper and summer savory work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 671 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mutton Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the leg of mutton for 2 to 3 hours.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and summer savory.

  3. Add rice or noodles as 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.

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. Pepper + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Summer savory + ricetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together35 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Mutton + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 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

Leg of mutton
Provides the meat and rich flavour that form the body of the broth as it simmers.
Rice or noodles
Adds starch and bulk, soaking up broth and giving the soup a more filling texture.

The step that matters

Boil the leg of mutton for 2 to 3 hours. A long, gentle simmer breaks down connective tissue in the meat, making it tender and releasing gelatin and flavour into the broth. Rolling boils can toughen the meat and cloud the soup, so keep the liquid at a steady simmer.

Swap the summer savory

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Summer savorythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, rice. 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.

More mutton soup recipes

with Tapioca 10White 8Oyster 4 See all 77 →

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipes