Skip to main content
Main

Scotch Mutton Broth

A hearty broth made from mutton neck, barley, carrots, turnips, onions, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Soak the mutton in water for 1 hour.

  2. Cut off the scrag and place it in a stewpan with 3 quarts of water.

  3. Cut the best end of the mutton into cutlets, removing most of the fat.

Make the broth

  1. Bring the stew to a boil, skim the surface, and then simmer for 1.5 hours.

  2. Skim the broth when the meat boils and every 10 minutes thereafter.

  3. Add the carrots, turnips, and onions to the broth.

  4. Stir in the barley and add salt to taste.

  5. Let everything stew together for 3.5 hours.

  6. About 30 minutes before serving, add chopped parsley.

Serve

  1. Serve the scrag pieces in the tureen with the soup and the remaining mutton on a separate dish with whole boiled turnips.

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

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

  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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 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 neck
Gives the broth its rich meaty flavour and body as it cooks slowly.
Barley
Releases starch into the broth, thickening it and giving it a soft body.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aroma to the broth as they soften.
Turnips
Add a mild sweetness and soft texture to the broth.
Onions
Add savoury depth and aroma to the broth as they cook down.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth. Fat and foam rise to the surface as the meat simmers. Regular skimming keeps the broth clear and stops greasy, cloudy liquid from forming.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipes