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Soup of Mutton Chops, Cucumbers, &C

A hearty soup of mutton chops simmered with cucumbers, carrots, turnips, celery, and onions in veal broth and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Soup of Mutton Chops, Cucumbers, &C

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Stew the cucumbers, carrots, turnips, celery, and onions in 1 pint of veal broth until tender.

  2. Remove the vegetables, strain the broth, and reduce it to a glaze before adding the vegetables back.

Cook the chops

  1. Season the mutton chops with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and mace.

  2. Boil the chops in ⅓ cup white wine and 1 pint veal broth until nearly tender.

  3. Combine the chops with the vegetables and strain their cooking liquid into the pot.

  4. Add 2 quarts of veal broth and boil gently for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve in a tureen with croutons of fried bread and a few drops of color if 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.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cucumber + turniptop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together226 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton chops
Provide the main meat, releasing flavour and gelatin into the broth as they cook.
Veal broth
Forms the base of the soup and carries the flavour of every other ingredient.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the rich broth and helps draw flavour from the chops.
Turnips
Contribute body and mild sweetness as they soften in the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour to the soup.

The step that matters

Reducing the strained broth to a glaze. Reducing concentrates flavour and body by evaporating water. Taking it too far can make the broth salty and sticky, while stopping too early leaves it thin and weak.

Swap the cucumber

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, onion, veal, 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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