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Mutton Broth

A clear broth made from mutton, turnips, carrot, onions, parsley, milk, and thickened with cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Mutton Broth

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 ↓

Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the mutton into strips and slice the vegetables.

Make the broth

  1. Boil the mutton and vegetables in 3 quarts of water for 2.5 hours, reducing the water by one-third.

  2. Strain the broth, removing the meat, and mash the vegetables through a colander.

  3. Cool the broth.

  4. Skim off the fat.

  5. Season.

  6. Return to the heat.

Thicken and serve

  1. Mix the cornstarch with a little water and stir it into the broth.

  2. Add the boiling hot milk and stir well.

  3. Serve.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat flavour and body as it simmers into the broth.
Turnips
Add sweetness and earthy flavour, and soften into the broth as it cooks.
Onions
Contribute savoury depth and aroma as they cook down in the broth.
Cornstarch
Thickens the broth when heated, giving it a smoother, more body-filled texture.
Milk
Adds richness and a mild creamy softness to the finished broth.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornstarch into the broth. Cornstarch must be fully mixed into a little cold water first and then stirred into hot liquid, or it clumps. It thickens only when the broth is heated again, so the broth needs to be returned to the heat before adding it.

Swap the onion

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

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

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