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Mutton-broth

A broth made by simmering mutton or lamb with water, rice, herbs, pepper, salt, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mutton-broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a pot, combine the mutton or lamb with cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil and cover while cooking until the meat falls apart.

  3. Strain the broth and return it to the pot.

Finish and season

  1. Add rice and parsley or thyme, and boil for 30 minutes, stirring frequently.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt, then stir in the milk.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton or lamb
Releases flavour and gelatin into the water as it cooks, giving the broth body.
Rice
Releases starch as it simmers, thickening the broth slightly.
Milk
Adds richness and softens the broth's savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Boil the rice and herbs gently while stirring. Rice settles and sticks to the bottom of the pot if left alone, which can scorch it and give the broth a burnt taste. Frequent stirring keeps the grains moving and the starch evenly dispersed.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, rice, pepper, milk):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, rice, pepper, 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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