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A Family Vegetable Soup

A soup made with beef, mutton, and assorted vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

A Family Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine the bola, knuckle of mutton, and water.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Add all the cut-up vegetables and dried herbs.

  4. Simmer until the meat is cooked through.

Finish and serve

  1. Boil the motsa balls separately and add to the soup.

  2. Color the soup with a little browning.

  3. Boil cauliflower or carrots to garnish the boiled meat.

  4. Serve with a sprinkle of chopped parsley on top.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  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 + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 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

Bola (beef)
Provides the main meat flavour and body as it simmers into the broth.
Knuckle of mutton
Adds rich, savoury flavour and gelatin-driven body to the broth as it cooks.
Potatoes
Thicken the broth slightly as their starch releases during simmering.
Jerusalem artichokes
Add a sweet, earthy flavour and a soft texture after simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer until the meat is cooked through. Tough cuts like bola and knuckle need long, gentle simmering so collagen breaks down into gelatin, making the meat tender and the broth rich. A rolling boil can toughen the meat and cloud the soup.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mutton, pepper, turnip, carrot, celery, leek. 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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