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Brown Broth

A savory soup made with butter, onions, carrots, water, bay leaf, sugar, salt, pepper, bread, egg, and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Brown Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onions and carrots, cooking until golden brown.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a kettle with boiling water and a bay leaf.

  4. Simmer for 15 minutes.

  5. Press the soup through a sieve into a clean pot.

Brown the sugar and finish the broth

  1. Heat the sugar in an iron saucepan until it browns.

  2. Add the chopped onions and water to the browned sugar.

  3. Combine this mixture with the soup.

  4. Add salt and pepper.

  5. Strain the soup again.

  6. Return the strained soup to the kettle.

Thicken and serve

  1. Stir in the bread mixed with beaten egg.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. 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 + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Fat that carries the flavor of the onions and carrots as they brown.
Onions
Browned through cooking, they add sweetness and deep savory color to the broth.
Carrots
Cooked until golden, they add natural sweetness and body to the broth.
Sugar
Caramelized in the saucepan, it adds color and a toasty, browned flavor.
Bread
Torn pieces soften in the hot broth, adding body and thickening it.
Egg
Mixed with the bread and stirred in, it helps bind and enrich the broth.

The step that matters

Browning the sugar in the iron saucepan. Sugar goes from amber to burnt quickly and then turns bitter. Watch it closely and stop once it is deep brown, before adding the onion and water, which will make it spatter.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, sugar, pepper, bread, egg, cheese):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, sugar, pepper, bread, egg, 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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