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Mutton Broth

A hearty broth made from mutton neck bones, onions, turnips, carrots, celery, leek, and pearl barley.

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

Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Joint the bones of the mutton neck and place the scrags in a stewpan.

  2. Add the onions, turnips, carrot, and fill the stewpan with water.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 3 hours, skimming regularly.

Add the vegetables and barley

  1. Cut the small carrot, turnips, onion, leek, and celery into small square pieces.

  2. In another stewpan, add the chopped vegetables and pearl barley.

  3. Skim the fat from the broth and pour it through a sieve over the vegetables.

  4. Let it boil gently until the barley is tender.

Serve

  1. Trim the meat into neat pieces and serve with the broth or separately with melted butter and parsley or onion sauce.

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 + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Leek + barleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together142 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + barleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 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 scrags
Give the broth its meaty flavour and body as they simmer for hours.
Pearl barley
Thickens the broth slightly and adds a soft, chewy texture as it cooks.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the broth as they soften.
Turnips
Contribute a mild, slightly sweet flavour and soft texture to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth. Fat and foam rise to the surface during simmering; removing them regularly keeps the broth clear and stops it tasting greasy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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