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Dinner No. 1

A winter dinner menu of Scotch broth, potato balls, turnips in white sauce, and tapioca with baked apples.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Ronald · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and turnip work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 629 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

four persons

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: flour

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Chop the scrag of mutton into pieces and put it into an iron pot with one quart of water, the sliced onion, and a small cupful of pearl barley.

  2. Simmer for two hours, adding a little water if it becomes too thick.

  3. Serve the broth boiling hot with the mutton in it.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Choose large potatoes and cut out small balls with a scoop.

  2. Boil the potato balls and serve them sprinkled with chopped parsley.

  3. Cut the turnips into small dice and boil until tender.

  4. Throw away the water from the turnips.

  5. Serve the turnips with a white sauce made of milk, flour, and a teaspoonful of butter.

Make the tapioca and bake

  1. Pare and core three or four apples and place them in a low baking dish.

  2. Add two dessertspoonfuls of tapioca and enough water to cover the whole.

  3. Bake in a slow oven.

By Mary Ronald. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Barley + turniptop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + turniptop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together7,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Mutton + barleytop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together510 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together25,834 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

Scrag of mutton
Provides the meat and rich flavour that the broth is built on.
Pearl barley
Thickens the broth and adds body as it simmers.
Tapioca
Thickens the juices around the apples as it bakes, giving a soft, set texture.
Turnips
Become tender when boiled and are served in a smooth white sauce.
Apples (in the method)
Soften during slow baking and provide the fruit base of the dessert.

The step that matters

Simmer the broth gently. Adding water as needed keeps the broth from thickening too much, while the barley and meat release starch and flavour slowly over the long simmer.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

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

  1. Celeryabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Garlicabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, barley, butter, onion, turnip. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.