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Good Family Mutton Broth

A hearty broth made from mutton shanks, neck, loin, and vegetables simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 145 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Good Family Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the mutton shanks at the bottom of a pot.

  2. Add the carrots, onion, 1 quart of cold water, and 1 teaspoon of salt.

  3. Simmer gently for 2.5 hours.

  4. Add 2 quarts of cold water, neck of mutton pieces, chump of loin, and another teaspoon of salt.

  5. Add the turnips and celery.

  6. Cover the pot.

  7. Simmer for 2 more hours.

Make the caper sauce

  1. In a cup, mix 2 teaspoons of flour with ¼ pint of water and 1 ounce of butter.

  2. Heat the mixture in a saucepan until it boils.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Stir in the chopped capers and caper vinegar.

Serve

  1. Remove the meat and half of the vegetables to a hot dish.

  2. Pour some sauce over the meat.

  3. Strain the remaining vegetables through a fine sieve.

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. Turnip + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together145 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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 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. Onion + turniptop 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 shanks
Long simmering releases flavour and gelatin into the broth, giving body to the liquid.
Turnips
Add sweetness and soft texture to the broth as they cook through.
Flour
Thickens the butter and water mixture into a smooth sauce as it heats.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny note that cuts through the richness of the mutton.

The step that matters

Heating the flour, water and butter mixture. Flour must be fully whisked into the liquid and heated until it boils so the starch swells and thickens smoothly. Stopping early leaves a raw, lumpy or thin sauce.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, turnip, celery, flour, butter, capers. 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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