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Scotch Broth

A hearty soup of mutton, barley, carrots, turnip, onion, celery, cabbage, and herbs.

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

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Scotch Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare and wash the vegetables, then cut them into very small pieces.

  2. Crack the bones of the mutton.

Cook

  1. Place the mutton and barley in a large pot with cold water.

  2. When the water boils, add the vegetables.

  3. Boil for 2.5 to 3 hours.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Barley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of mutton
Bones and meat release flavour and gelatin into the broth as it simmers.
Pearl barley
Starch thickens the broth and softens into the soup as it cooks.
Carrots
Sweetness and body from the vegetables, softening as they simmer.
Turnip
Adds earthy sweetness and body as it softens in the broth.
Onion
Builds savoury depth as it softens and dissolves into the broth.
Cabbage
Adds texture and mild sweetness as it cooks down in the broth.

The step that matters

Boil for 2.5 to 3 hours. A long, gentle simmer is needed to draw flavour and gelatin from the bones and to make the barley tender. Boiling too hard can cloud the broth and toughen the meat.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, barley, thyme, carrot, turnip, onion, celery):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, barley, thyme, carrot, turnip, onion, celery. 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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