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Veal or Mutton Broth

A clear broth made from veal or mutton, water, salt, peppercorns, mace, herbs, carrots, onions, potato, turnip, sugar, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Veal or Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Add meat and bones to a pot with cold water.

  2. Skim the surface and add salt, peppercorns, mace, sweet herbs, carrots, onions, potato, turnip, sugar, and rice.

  3. Boil slowly for 4 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the broth and let it cool.

  2. Skim off the fat and reheat before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Meat and bones
Release gelatin and savory flavor into the water as they simmer slowly.
Rice
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch softens during the long simmer.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the broth as they soften.
Onions
Build savory depth and aroma as they cook down in the liquid.
Potato
Adds starch that gives the broth a little more body.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and earthy flavor as it breaks down during simmering.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 4 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear, while a hard boil makes it cloudy and can emulsify fat into the liquid. Slow cooking also draws flavor and gelatin out of the bones.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, carrot, onion, potato, turnip, sugar, rice):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, carrot, onion, potato, turnip, sugar, rice. 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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