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Mutton or Lamb Broth

A clear broth made from water of boiled mutton or lamb, with turnip, onion, carrot, parsley, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Mutton or Lamb Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Use the water from boiling a leg of mutton or lamb from the previous day.

  2. Remove the fat from the water.

Cook

  1. In a pot, combine the water, turnip, onion, and carrot while the water is cold.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer for 2 hours.

  3. Add minced parsley and rice, then cook for an additional 20 minutes.

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. 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. Onion + carrottop 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

Turnip
Adds sweetness and body as it softens into the broth.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma to the broth as it simmers.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and color to the broth.
Rice
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch releases during cooking.

The step that matters

Remove the fat from the water. Fat that stays in the broth can make it greasy and heavy on the palate. Skimming it while the water is cold lets the fat solidify and lift off cleanly before the vegetables and rice are added.

Swap the onion

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

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

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