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Mutton Eroth

A slow‑cooked mutton broth made with optional vegetables and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mutton Eroth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Wash the mutton in tepid water.

  2. Cut the meat into small pieces.

  3. Place the pieces in a stewpan with 4 cups of water per pound of meat. If a lighter broth is desired, add an additional 2 cups of water.

  4. Add a pinch of coarse sea salt.

Simmer the broth

  1. Bring the mixture to a boil, skimming off any scum that rises.

  2. If using, add the onions, turnip, and peppercorns.

  3. Let the broth simmer gently for 3 hours.

  4. Strain the broth.

Degrease and garnish

  1. To remove fat, let it cool. Alternatively, plunge the basin into cold water to remove fat.

  2. Wash the parsley. Chop the parsley. Simmer the parsley in boiling salted water for 1 minute. Chop the parsley finely.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Scrags of necks of mutton
Provides the meat and bones whose collagen and flavour enrich the broth as it simmers.
Water
Extracts flavour and gelatin from the meat, forming the body of the broth.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the broth as they simmer.

The step that matters

Skimming the boil. Scum that rises during the initial boil contains coagulated proteins and impurities; removing it early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting rather than cloudy or greasy.

Swap the onion

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

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

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