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Scotch Broth

A hearty soup made with mutton, barley, vegetables, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Scotch Broth

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Scotch Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the pearl barley in cold water overnight.

  2. Cut the lean mutton into ½ inch dice and the rest into small pieces.

Make the stock

  1. Make a stock by boiling the mutton pieces with 2½ quarts of water and the soaked barley for 2 hours, skimming as needed.

Finish the broth

  1. Brown the diced mutton in 2 oz of butter in a saucepan after 1½ hours, then stir in 1 oz of flour.

  2. Add diced turnip, carrot, and chopped onion to the browned meat.

  3. Pour in the strained stock and barley, season with salt and pepper, and simmer for 1 hour.

  4. Stir in the chopped parsley 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.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Barley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Neck of mutton
Provides the meat flavour and body that the broth is built on.
Pearl barley
Thickens the broth as its starch releases during long simmering.
Butter
Carries the browning of the mutton and adds richness to the broth.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens in the broth.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body as it softens during simmering.
Yellow turnip
Adds a mild, slightly peppery sweetness as it cooks through.

The step that matters

Skimming the stock while it boils. Foam and fat rising from the meat can make the broth cloudy and greasy. Skimming them off as they form, with a gentle boil rather than a hard one, keeps the stock clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, barley, butter, turnip, carrot, pepper, 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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