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Mutton Soup with Tapioca

A hearty soup made from lean mutton, bones, vegetables, and tapioca, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 meat and bones

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

  2. Heat slowly until boiling. Add 2 quarts of hot water.

  3. Chop the vegetables.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cover the vegetables with cold water in a separate pot.

  2. Discard the first water. Replenish with hot water.

  3. Stew the vegetables until they are completely soft.

Cook and finish the soup

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

  2. Strain the soup into a large bowl.

  3. Let the soup cool to allow the fat to rise to the surface. Skim off the fat.

  4. Return the soup to the heat. Add pepper 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. 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 flavor and, as it cooks, gelatin and body to the broth.
Bones
Release collagen and marrow flavor into the water, giving the broth richness and body.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and a soft, starchy texture to the soup.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color to the broth.
Pearl or granulated tapioca
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch gelatinizes during cooking.

The step that matters

Cook the mutton steadily for 5 hours with the pot lid on. A gentle, steady simmer lets collagen slowly break down into gelatin without boiling the meat tough. The lid limits evaporation so the broth stays concentrated and flavorful.

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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