Why it works: Mutton and barley work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 510 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓
Mutton -tea
Ingredients
Directions
Make the mutton tea
Pour boiling water over the sliced mutton in a pot.
Let it sit for 30 minutes to macerate.
Boil the mixture for 30 minutes.
Strain through a sieve to remove solids.
Add the barley
If using barley, wash it and soak in boiling water for 1 hour, then add to the pot and boil with the mutton tea.
Strain again to separate undissolved barley.
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.
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Mutton + barleytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together510 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Mutton
- Provides the meat flavour and dissolved juices that make up the broth.
- Pearl barley
- Adds body and a light thickening from its starch as it simmers in the broth.
The step that matters
Straining after the first boil. Straining removes the cooked meat solids so the liquid stays clear and smooth. Leftover fragments would cloud the tea and give it a grainy texture.
“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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