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Soup of Mutton Chops, Cucumbers, &C

A hearty soup of mutton chops simmered with cucumbers, carrots, turnips, celery, and onions in veal broth and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Soup of Mutton Chops, Cucumbers, &C

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables and broth

  1. Stew the cucumbers, carrots, turnips, celery, and button onions in 1 pint of veal broth until tender.

  2. Remove the vegetables and strain the broth, reducing it to a glaze.

  3. Return the vegetables to the reduced broth.

Cook the chops

  1. Season the mutton chops with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and mace.

  2. Boil the chops in ⅓ cup of white wine and 1 pint of veal broth until nearly tender.

  3. Add the chops to the vegetables and strain their cooking liquid into the pot.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour in 2 more quarts of veal broth and boil gently for 10 minutes.

  2. Serve in a tureen with croutons of fried bread and a few drops of color 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cucumber + turniptop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together226 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked 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

Mutton chops
Provide the meat that flavours the broth as it cooks slowly until nearly tender.
Veal broth
Forms the liquid base, and reducing it to a glaze concentrates its savoury flavour.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the liquid in which the chops are first boiled.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the broth as they soften during stewing.
Turnips
Contribute mild sweetness and texture to the vegetables cooked in the broth.

The step that matters

Reducing the broth to a glaze. Reducing concentrates flavour and gives body to the broth. If it is reduced too far it becomes overly salty and sticky, and if too little, the soup tastes thin and watery.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, celery, onion, veal, mutton, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, onion, veal, mutton, pepper. 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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