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Soup

Scotch Broth

A hearty soup of diced mutton, barley, and vegetables, thickened with butter and flour.

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. Slice and cut the mutton from the neck into dice, discarding skin and fat.

Make the broth

  1. Cover the bones with 1 pint of cold water and simmer for 3 hours.

  2. In a separate pot, add 3 pints of cold water over the diced mutton, heat slowly, and skim until the scum is white.

  3. Add the soaked barley and simmer for 2 hours.

  4. Add the diced vegetables and simmer for another hour or until the meat and barley are tender.

Thicken and season

  1. Thicken the strained bone water with the butter and flour cooked together, then stir into the broth.

  2. Add the salt, pepper, and parsley, and serve without straining.

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. Barley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + turniptop 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
Provides the main meat flavour and, as it simmers, gives the broth its richness.
Barley
Thickens the broth and adds body as its starch softens during long simmering.
Flour
Thickens the strained bone water into a smooth, lightly body-rich base when cooked with butter.
Butter
Cooked with the flour to form a roux that adds richness and helps thicken the broth.
Turnip
Adds sweetness and a mild earthy flavour as it becomes tender in the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum from the mutton broth. Scum rising at the start is coagulated protein and impurities; skimming it as it forms keeps the broth clear and free of off-flavours.

Swap the onion

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

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

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