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Scotch Broth

A hearty mutton soup with barley, carrots, turnip, onion, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Scotch Broth

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Scotch Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Remove the bones from the mutton and simmer them in 1 pint of water.

  2. Cut the meat into small pieces, removing gristle and sinew, and place it in a kettle with the cold water.

  3. Cook gently for 2 hours.

Make the broth

  1. Add the strained liquid from the bones, sliced onion, diced turnip, diced carrot, barley, and salt.

  2. Cook until the vegetables are tender.

  3. Add a little celery salt and pepper.

  4. Stir in 1 teaspoon of flour mixed with a little butter and some chopped parsley.

  5. Serve as soon as it boils.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  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 + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton neck
Gives the broth its rich meaty flavour and body as it simmers.
Barley
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch releases during long cooking.
Flour
Thickens the broth when stirred in with butter near the end.
Turnip
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the broth as it softens.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and colour as it cooks until tender.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour and butter. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps and stays raw-tasting. Mixing it first with butter, then stirring it in gradually, helps it disperse and thicken the broth smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

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

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