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Scotch Mutton Broth

A broth made from mutton neck, water, carrots, turnips, onions, Scotch barley, salt, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 neck of mutton in water for 1 hour.

  2. Cut off the scrag and place it in a stew-pan with 2 quarts of water.

  3. Bring to a boil, skim well, and then simmer for 1.5 hours.

Make the broth

  1. Cut the best end of the mutton into pieces, removing excess fat, and add to the pot.

  2. Skim the broth when the fresh meat boils up, then every 15 minutes thereafter.

  3. Add the carrots, turnips, and onions to the pot to cook until tender.

  4. Wet the Scotch barley with cold water and add it to the pot.

  5. Let the meat stew for 3 hours.

  6. Season with salt to taste and serve with chopped parsley added 20 minutes 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.

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
Collagen from the neck and scrag breaks down during long simmering, enriching the broth and softening the meat.
Scotch barley
Starch thickens the broth as the grains swell and soften during the long simmer.
Carrots
Natural sugars add gentle sweetness and body to the broth as they cook until tender.
Turnips
Starchy flesh softens during cooking, adding earthy flavour and body to the broth.
Onions
Cooking releases sulfur compounds that turn sweet and savoury, deepening the broth's flavour.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth. Foam and fat rise as proteins coagulate on the surface while the broth boils. 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, 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.

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