Why it works: Mutton and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,488 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Mutton Broth
Ingredients
Directions
Remove the fat from the mutton and place the meat in a quart of water.
Skim the surface as it boils, then add the bread crust and mace.
Cover and let it boil slowly for 30 minutes.
Pour the broth off without stirring, skim off the fat, and season with salt.
The meat can be eaten separately.
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.
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Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,488 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Bread + macetop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,005 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Mutton + macetop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together827 recipes
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Loin of mutton
- Gives the broth its meaty flavour as it simmers in the water.
- Water
- Acts as the cooking liquid that extracts flavour and gelatin from the meat.
- Upper crust of bread
- Adds a mild toasted aroma and body to the broth as it simmers.
- Blade of mace
- Contributes a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the broth.
The step that matters
Pour the broth off without stirring. Stirring would lift fat and sediment from the bottom of the pot into the liquid, making the broth cloudy and greasy.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, bread):
- Pepperfits better
- Garlicfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, bread. 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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