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Mutton Soup

A broth made from a boiled leg of mutton, seasoned with salt, pepper, and summer savory, thickened with an egg‑milk‑flour batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Mutton Soup

Why it works: Summer savory and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 263 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mutton Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the leg of mutton in water for three hours.

  2. Season the broth with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and summer savory.

Add the batter and finish

  1. In a bowl, beat together the egg, milk, and flour until smooth.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the soup and boil for three minutes.

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. Summer savory + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together263 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton
Long simmering draws flavour and body from the meat and connective tissue into the broth.
Egg
Binds the batter and sets as it cooks, holding the dumplings together in the soup.
Flour
Thickens the batter and gives the dumplings structure as the starch cooks.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter, keeping the dumplings tender.
Summer savory
Contributes a herbal aroma that complements the mutton broth.

The step that matters

Drop the batter into the soup and boil for three minutes. The soup should be actively boiling when the batter goes in. The flour starch and egg proteins need heat to gelatinise and set, so a cooler soup can leave the dumplings pasty or dissolving.

Swap the summer savory

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Turmericfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Summer savorythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, egg, milk, flour. 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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