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Mutton Soup

A hearty soup made with mutton, bacon, peas, turnips, carrots, cabbage, lettuce, herbs, onion, parsley, and butter‑flour roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Mutton Soup

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mutton Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pea base

  1. Combine bacon and enough water in a saucepan.

  2. Add peas and boil until they become a pulp.

  3. Strain the peas through a cloth and set them aside.

Cook the soup

  1. Add enough water to the bacon to boil the mutton.

  2. Add the sliced turnips and carrots.

  3. Boil slowly for 1 hour.

  4. Add the sweet herbs, onion, cabbage, and lettuce.

  5. Stew for an additional 15 minutes until the mutton is cooked.

  6. Remove the mutton from the pot.

  7. Add the fresh green peas and chopped parsley to the soup along with the strained peas.

  8. Incorporate the butter rolled in flour and stew until the green peas are tender.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat flavour and richness as it simmers into the broth.
Dried peas
Boiled to a pulp and strained, they thicken the soup and give it body.
Butter rolled in flour
A flour-coated fat that thickens the broth and adds richness as it stews.
Turnips
Soften during slow boiling and add mild sweetness and body to the broth.
Carrots
Soften during slow boiling and add sweetness and colour to the broth.

The step that matters

Incorporating the butter rolled in flour. Flour-coated butter must be stirred in gently and kept simmering so the flour hydrates and cooks out fully; otherwise it stays floury or forms lumps and the soup tastes raw.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, turnip, carrot, onion, cabbage, lettuce, parsley):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, turnip, carrot, onion, cabbage, lettuce, parsley. 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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