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Mutton-stock for Soups

A stock made from beef, mutton, celery, onions, turnips, carrots, spices, and water, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 ↓

Mutton-stock for Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine equal parts of beef and mutton with a small portion of ham or lean bacon.

  2. Add the necks of fowl or bones from any uncooked joint for extra flavor.

  3. Pour 1 to 1½ gallons of cold water for each pound of meat.

Simmer

  1. Skim the liquid as it begins to boil.

  2. Add 1½ tablespoons of coarse sea salt, celery, onions, turnips, carrots, white pepper, cloves, and mace.

  3. Simmer gently for about 6 hours.

Finish

  1. Strain the stock and remove any fat before serving.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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

Beef
Adds deep meaty flavor and connective tissue that breaks down into gelatin, giving the stock body.
Mutton
Contributes a rich, distinctive meaty flavor and additional body to the stock.
Onions
Release sweet, savory flavor compounds into the liquid as they simmer.
Cloves
Add a warm, aromatic spice note that perfumes the stock.
Mace
Adds a warm, delicate aroma that complements the meats and vegetables.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for about 6 hours. A gentle simmer lets collagen slowly dissolve into gelatin while fat and proteins stay mostly separate. Vigorous boiling churns them into the liquid, making the stock cloudy and greasy.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mutton, celery, onion, turnip, carrot, clove. 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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