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Soup

Mutton Tea

A broth made from mutton, pearl barley, and water, seasoned with sea salt and optionally flavored with celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and celery work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 571 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Mutton Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Trim all the fat from the mutton and cut it into chops.

  2. In a pot, add the mutton, pearl barley, and water.

  3. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

  4. Add a small stick of celery for flavoring if desired.

Finish and season

  1. Strain the mixture and let it cool.

  2. Remove all the fat from the broth.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

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. Barley + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together571 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Mutton + barleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together510 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Mutton + celerytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together928 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Scrag end neck of mutton
Provides the meat and collagen that give the broth its body and savory flavor.
Pearl barley
Releases starch as it simmers, thickening the broth slightly and adding body.

The step that matters

Remove all the fat from the broth. Fat that is not skimmed after cooling and straining stays in the broth as a greasy layer and dulls its flavor. Chilling makes the fat solidify on top so it lifts off cleanly.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, barley):

  1. Celerythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Pepperfits less well
  4. Cuminfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, barley. 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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