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Soup

Scotch Broth

A hearty Scottish soup made with mutton, barley, and root vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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. Soak the barley overnight.

  2. Remove the fat and skin from the mutton, then cut the meat into small pieces.

  3. Boil the bones in 1 pint of cold water and the meat in 3 pints of cold water.

Make the broth

  1. Once boiling, add the soaked barley and water.

  2. Dice the vegetables and fry them in butter for 5 minutes, then add to the meat.

  3. Cook slowly for 4 hours.

Finish

  1. Strain the bones from the broth and add the liquid to the meat along with salt and pepper.

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 + barleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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

Mutton
Provides the main meat and rich flavour, and becomes tender during long slow cooking.
Barley
Releases starch as it cooks, thickening the broth and giving it body.
Butter
Fat that softens the vegetables and carries their flavour into the broth.
Onion
Browns gently in butter, adding sweetness and savoury aroma to the broth.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and colour to the broth.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and body as it softens in the broth.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 4 hours. A gentle simmer lets the collagen in the neck meat break down slowly, leaving it tender. A hard rolling boil toughens the meat and makes the broth cloudy.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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