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Mutton Soup

A hearty soup made with mutton, onions, tomatoes, potatoes, barley, and a flour slurry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Mutton Soup

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mutton Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the mutton

  1. Boil the mutton in enough water to cover it well.

  2. As the water cooks away, add boiling water as needed.

  3. Once the mutton is done, remove it from the kettle.

Make the soup

  1. Add the chopped onions, tomatoes, diced potatoes, and cooked barley to the water.

  2. Boil for 1 hour.

  3. Before serving, mix the flour with cold water and add it to the soup.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Potato + barleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + barleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,166 recipes

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

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 and rich flavor in the broth as it simmers.
Potatoes
Soften as they cook, adding body and starch to the soup.
Barley
Adds chewy texture and thickens the broth as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the soup broth when stirred in before serving.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour with cold water before adding it. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps, because its starch surface hydrates unevenly. Mixing it into cold water first creates a smooth slurry that thickens the soup evenly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, potato, barley, flour):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, potato, barley, 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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