Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
On Boiling Meats
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the mutton
Put the leg of mutton into boiling water to retain its juices.
If desired, boil a piece of salt pork in the water before adding the mutton for flavor.
Skim off any scum just before the water boils to keep the meat clean.
Boil the mutton for about 1.5 hours.
Set aside the cooking water until the next day and remove the fat.
Make the broth
In a soup pot, combine the reserved liquid, mutton bones, rice, carrots, turnips, onions, and leftover mutton.
Boil the mixture for 2 hours to make a mutton broth.
If the broth is not rich enough, add 12 tomatoes for extra flavor.
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.
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Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,606 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together21,601 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,065 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Leg of mutton
- Provides the main meat and rich flavor that the broth is built on.
- Rice
- Thickens the broth slightly as its starch softens during the long simmer.
- Carrots
- Add sweetness and body to the broth as they soften.
- Turnips
- Add mild sweetness and body to the broth as they cook.
- Onion
- Adds aroma and savory depth to the broth.
The step that matters
Skimming the scum before the water boils. Skimming just before the boil removes coagulated proteins and impurities that would otherwise cloud the broth and mar its clean flavor.
Swap the tomato
The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pork, rice, carrot, turnip, onion):
- Leekfits better
- Potatofits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Tomatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pork, rice, carrot, turnip, onion. 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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