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Soups, Broths, Purees

A hearty broth made from mutton, vegetables, and pearl barley, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Soups, Broths, Purees

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Put 2 quarts of water in a saucepan.

  2. Wash the mutton and cut it into small pieces.

  3. Break up the bones.

  4. Add the mutton to the saucepan and bring it slowly to a boil.

  5. Add salt and peppercorns.

  6. Skim the broth when it boils.

  7. Shred the vegetables.

  8. Add the shredded vegetables to the boiling broth.

Cook the broth

  1. Wash and soak the pearl barley.

  2. Boil the pearl barley separately for 10 minutes before adding it to the broth.

  3. Cook the broth for 3 hours.

  4. Strain the broth.

  5. Return the vegetables and pearl barley to the broth 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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 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
Its bones and meat release flavor and gelatin, giving the broth body and savory depth.
Pearl barley
Its starch thickens the broth slightly and adds a chewy, hearty texture.
Onions
They add sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth as it simmers.
Carrots
They contribute natural sweetness and color to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Skim the broth when it boils. Foam and coagulated proteins rise to the surface as the mutton heats. Removing them keeps the broth clear and free of off-flavors.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

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