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Mutton Soup with Tapioca

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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.

  2. Heat slowly until boiling.

  3. Add 2 quarts of hot water from the kettle once it boils.

  4. Cook the mutton steadily for 5 hours with the pot lid on.

  5. Skim off any fat that rises to the surface.

  6. Strain the broth into a large bowl.

  7. Let the broth cool to remove the fat.

  8. Return the broth to the pot.

  9. Season the broth with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  10. Boil and remove any scum.

Cook the vegetables

  1. Chop the vegetables.

  2. Cover the vegetables with cold water.

  3. Simmer until tender.

  4. Drain the vegetables and set aside.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the cooked vegetables and their liquid to the broth.

  2. Heat together for 10 minutes.

  3. Strain the soup again.

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

  5. Cook the tapioca in boiling water until clear, stirring often.

  6. Gradually stir the tapioca into the soup until dissolved.

  7. 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 the main meat flavour and body as it simmers into the broth.
Bones
Release gelatin and savoury flavour into the broth during long simmering.
Tapioca
Thickens the soup as its starch gelatinises and dissolves into the liquid.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and soft body to the soup as they cook tender.
Carrots
Add sweetness and colour to the broth as they soften.

The step that matters

Cooking the tapioca until clear. Tapioca must be stirred often in boiling water so its starch cooks evenly without lumps or sticking. Adding it gradually to the hot soup keeps it dispersed and lets it thicken smoothly.

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.

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