Skip to main content
Main

Mutton Soup with Tapioca

A hearty soup made from mutton, bones, vegetables, and tapioca, seasoned with pepper, salt, and served with grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mutton Soup with Tapioca

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Combine the mutton and bones with 2 quarts of cold water in a large pot. Heat slowly until boiling.

  2. Add 2 quarts of hot water from the kettle.

  3. Simmer the meat for 5 hours with the lid on, ensuring it cooks steadily.

  4. Strain the soup into a large bowl and let it cool to skim off the fat.

  5. Return the liquid to the pot.

  6. Season with pepper and salt.

  7. Bring to a boil and remove any scum.

Cook the vegetables

  1. Chop the vegetables.

  2. Cover the vegetables with cold water.

  3. Once they begin to simmer, discard the first water and replenish with hot water.

  4. Cook the vegetables until soft.

  5. Add the cooked vegetables and their liquid.

  6. Heat together for 10 minutes.

  7. Strain again.

Add the tapioca and serve

  1. Soak the tapioca in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Cook the tapioca in boiling water until clear.

  3. Bring the soup to a slow boil before adding the tapioca.

  4. Stir the tapioca into the soup until dissolved.

  5. Serve with grated cheese.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 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
Provides rich meaty flavor and body as it simmers into the broth.
Bones
Release gelatin and marrow flavor, giving the broth depth and a fuller mouthfeel.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and soft texture to the soup.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and color to the broth.
Tapioca
Thickens the soup as its starch gelatinizes, giving a slightly silky body.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat and scum. Fat and foam rise to the surface of the broth. Chilling the strained soup lets fat solidify for easy removal, and removing scum keeps the broth clean-tasting and clear.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, turnip, carrot, celery, parsley, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipes