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Beef and Mutton Soup

A hearty soup made with beef, mutton, vegetables, and herbs simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beef and Mutton Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the beef and mutton in a large pot with the cold water, salt, and pepper.

  2. Set the pot over low heat and skim off any foam that forms.

  3. Add the carrot, turnips, parsnip, onions, celery, leeks, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, and garlic.

  4. Simmer for 4 to 5 hours.

Strain and finish

  1. Remove the meat and vegetables.

  2. Strain the broth.

  3. Skim off the fat.

  4. Return the broth to the heat until it reaches a boil.

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. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Releases flavour and gelatin into the broth as it simmers slowly.
Breast of mutton
Adds rich, savoury meat flavour to the broth during long simmering.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth as they cook.
Leeks
Add mild onion-like aroma and subtle sweetness to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off any foam that forms. Foam carries impurities from the meat that cloud the broth and taste bitter if left to mix back in. Skimming early, over low heat, keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mutton, pepper, carrot, turnip, parsnip, onion. 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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