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Giblet Soup

A lamb leg soup with onion, carrot, celery, herbs, and spinach.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 10,173 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Giblet Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the leg of lamb in a pot with water, onion, carrot, celery, salt, pepper, and herbs until tender.

  2. Remove the lamb and strain the broth.

Finish and serve

  1. Shred the meat from the lamb and return it to the broth.

  2. Add the spinach and simmer for 5 minutes before serving.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,193 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned 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

Leg of lamb
Provides the meat and rich flavor that the broth carries once simmered and shredded.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the broth as it simmers.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the broth.
Celery
Contributes aroma and savory background flavor to the broth.
Spinach
Adds leafy texture and color, wilting briefly in the hot broth.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, carrot, celery, pepper, thyme, spinach):

  1. Parsnipbetter flavor fit
  2. Turnipbetter flavor fit
  3. Okrabetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, carrot, celery, pepper, thyme, spinach. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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