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Scotch Broth

A hearty mutton soup with barley and root vegetables, thickened with flour and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Scotch Broth

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 ↓

Scotch Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Let the mutton stand in water for 1 hour.

  2. Heat slowly to boiling, then skim the surface.

  3. Allow to simmer for 1 hour.

Add the vegetables and barley

  1. Fry the onion, carrot, turnips, and celery in drippings for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the fried vegetables and barley to the pot.

  3. Simmer the soup for 3 hours.

Season and serve

  1. Season with salt and pepper, thicken with flour, and serve garnished with parsley.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the meat and rich flavor that forms the base of the broth.
Barley
Releases starch as it simmers, adding body and thickening the broth.
Onion
Fried first, it builds sweetness and savory depth in the broth.
Flour
Thickens the broth when stirred in, giving it a fuller texture.

The step that matters

Skimming the surface after heating to boiling. Heating slowly and skimming removes foam and coagulated proteins that would otherwise cloud the broth and taste scummy.

Swap the onion

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

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

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