Skip to main content
Main

Veal Broth for Invalids. Very Nourishing.

A nourishing broth made from veal knuckle, mutton scrag, barley, parsley, and seasonings, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and barley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 630 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Veal Broth for Invalids. Very Nourishing.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine water, knuckle of veal, scrag of mutton, salt, and peppercorns in a large pot.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let it simmer gently for 7 hours.

  3. Strain the broth and let it cool.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the fat from the cooled broth.

  2. Reheat the broth to serve, adding chopped parsley and pearl barley if desired.

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. Parsley + barleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Mutton + barleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together510 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Veal + muttontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  4. Veal + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,766 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Veal + barleytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together162 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Knuckle of veal
Releases collagen and gelatin over long simmering, giving the broth body and a rich mouthfeel.
Scrag of mutton
Adds meaty, savory flavor and additional gelatin to the simmering liquid.
Pearl barley
Adds starch and a chewy texture when the broth is reheated for serving.

The step that matters

Keep the simmer gentle. A rolling boil emulsifies fat and clouds the broth, while a gentle simmer lets collagen dissolve slowly and keeps the liquid clear and easier to skim.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Pepperfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, mutton, barley. 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.

More veal broth recipes

with Rice 7 See all 133 →

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipes