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Mutton Broth

A simple broth made from boiled mutton fat, onion, rice, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Mutton Broth

Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Remove the fat from the water used to boil yesterday's mutton.

  2. Add ½ small onion, ½ cup raw rice, and a little white pepper.

  3. Boil slowly for 30 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.

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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  2. Mutton + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 recipes

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

  4. Rice + white peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together439 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Onion + white peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw rice
Releases starch as it cooks, thickening the broth and giving it body.
Fat from boiled mutton
Adds richness and carries the meaty flavour through the broth.
Onion
Contributes savoury, aromatic flavour as it simmers into the broth.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, 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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