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Mutton Broth

A hearty broth made from mutton shoulder, water, onion, turnips, carrots, salt, rice, parsley, drawn butter, and capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Mutton Broth

Why it works: Turnip and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 145 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the shoulder of mutton in 4 quarts of water for 2 hours.

  2. Add the chopped onion, turnips, carrots, salt, and rice.

  3. Boil for an additional 1.5 hours.

  4. Add chopped parsley 5 minutes before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve the mutton with drawn butter and capers, garnished with carrots and turnips.

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. Turnip + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton shoulder
Provides the main meat and rich flavour that dissolves into the broth as it simmers.
Rice
Releases starch as it cooks, thickening the broth and giving it body.
Turnips
Add sweetness and body to the broth as they soften during long simmering.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour to the broth as they soften during long simmering.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the broth as it cooks.

The step that matters

Skimming and timing the long boil. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil keeps the broth clear and prevents the meat from toughening. Rice added too early can overcook and turn the broth cloudy and starchy.

Swap the onion

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

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

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