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Lamb-soup, Greek Fashion

A Greek-style lamb soup with curry, ham trimmings, rice, and a creamy egg yolk thickener.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,843 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Lamb-soup, Greek Fashion

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the lamb

  1. Heat butter in a stewpan.

  2. Fry lamb pieces with sliced onion until nicely colored.

  3. Sprinkle flour and curry powder over the lamb and cook for 2 minutes.

Make the stock

  1. Add broth and raw ham trimmings.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Finish cooking the lamb.

  5. Strain the stock into another stewpan.

  6. Add boiled rice.

  7. Simmer gently for 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Bone the lamb pieces.

  2. Place them in a soup tureen.

  3. Thicken the soup with egg yolks diluted in cream.

  4. Strain into the tureen.

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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  2. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  3. Lamb + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together439 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Parsley + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Lamb + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,322 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

Lamb shoulder
Main meat, whose juices and fat give the soup its rich, savory body.
Butter
Fat that carries flavor and helps the onion and lamb brown.
Flour
Coats the lamb and helps thicken the broth.
Curry powder
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the lamb and broth.
Rice
Adds starch that gives the soup body as it simmers.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup when diluted in cream.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with egg yolks diluted in cream.. Egg yolks set when heated, so they curdle if the soup boils after they are added. Keep the soup off the boil and stir steadily for a smooth, thickened result.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, butter, flour, ham, parsley, rice, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, flour, ham, parsley, rice, egg. 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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