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Mutton Soup with Tapioca

A hearty mutton broth with vegetables and tapioca pearls, served with grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 broth

  1. Cut the mutton into small pieces.

  2. Place the mutton in a pot with the bones and 2 quarts of cold water.

  3. Heat the pot slowly until boiling.

  4. Add 2 quarts of hot water.

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

  6. Skim off any scum from the mutton.

  7. Strain the broth into a bowl.

  8. Let the broth cool to remove the fat.

  9. Return the broth to the pot.

Cook the vegetables

  1. Chop the vegetables.

  2. Cover the vegetables with cold water.

  3. Simmer the vegetables until tender, then drain.

Finish the soup

  1. Season the broth with pepper and salt.

  2. Add the drained vegetables to the broth.

  3. Heat the soup together for 10 minutes.

  4. Strain the soup again.

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

  6. Cook the tapioca in boiling water until clear.

  7. Stir the tapioca into the soup until dissolved.

  8. Serve the soup 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
Gives the soup its meaty flavor and rich body as it cooks slowly.
Bones
Release gelatin and flavor into the broth, adding body and depth.
Tapioca
Thickens the broth as its starch swells and turns it slightly glossy and silky.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aroma to the broth as they soften.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum from the mutton. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise during the first heating; removing it keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, turnip, carrot, celery, parsley, pepper, cheese):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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