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Mutton Soup

A hearty soup made with lean mutton, rice, parsley, and black pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Mutton Soup

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mutton Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove all fat and skin from the mutton.

  2. Place the mutton in a stew pan with the cold water and salt.

Simmer

  1. Boil for 30 minutes, then skim off any foam.

  2. Add the rice, parsley, and black pepper.

  3. Boil slowly for 1.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Remove the meat and serve the soup hot with toast or crackers.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  3. Rice + peppertop 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

Mutton
Provides the meat flavour and savoury richness that season the broth as it simmers.
Rice
Adds body and a little starch that thickens the soup slightly as it cooks.
Cold water
Forms the broth; starting cold lets the flavour slowly draw out of the meat as it heats.

The step that matters

Skimming off the foam. Foam rising during the first boil carries impurities and cloudy proteins from the meat. Skimming it keeps the broth clearer and cleaner in taste.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Celeryfits about as well
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, rice, 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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