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Mutton Tea

A hearty soup made from mutton, barley, and water, seasoned with salt and optional celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and celery work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 571 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Mutton Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim all the fat from the mutton and cut it into chops.

  2. In a pot, add the mutton, barley, and water.

Simmer and strain

  1. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

  2. Strain the mixture and let it cool.

Finish

  1. Remove all the fat from the broth and season with salt.

  2. Add celery for flavoring 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. Barley + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together571 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Mutton + barleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together510 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Mutton + celerytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together928 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Gives the broth its meaty flavor and body as it simmers.
Pearl barley
Releases starch during simmering, slightly thickening the broth and adding body.
Water
Acts as the cooking liquid that extracts flavor and gelatin from the meat.

The step that matters

Remove all the fat from the broth. Fat floats on cooled liquid and can make the tea greasy. Chilling or skimming after straining lets the fat solidify or lift off so the broth tastes clean.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, barley):

  1. Celerythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Pepperfits less well
  4. Cuminfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, barley. 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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