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Mutton Broth

A simple broth made from mutton, onion, optional turnip, pearl barley, pepper, sea salt, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Mutton Broth

Why it works: Turnip and barley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 629 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the mutton into small pieces.

  2. Place the mutton and onion in a saucepan with the water and heat very slowly.

Cook the broth

  1. Cook gently for one hour.

  2. Scald the pearl barley by washing it, boiling for ten minutes, and straining.

  3. Add the scalded pearl barley to the saucepan and cook for one hour longer.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + barleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,166 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Mutton
Releases flavor and gelatin into the water, giving the broth its body and savory taste.
Pearl barley
Softens and thickens the broth as its starch releases during simmering.
Onion
Adds savory, aromatic sweetness that deepens the broth's flavor.

The step that matters

Heat the mutton and water very slowly. Starting gently lets fat and proteins release gradually into the water, producing a clearer broth. Rapid boiling emulsifies fat into the liquid and makes it cloudy and greasy.

Swap the turnip

The recipe marks turnip as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, barley, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Turnipthe original
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, barley, pepper. 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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