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Mutton Broth

A hearty broth made by simmering mutton shoulder with vegetables, rice, and seasonings, served with 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. Chop the parsley and add it 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
Gives the broth its meaty flavour as it simmers in the water.
Rice
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch releases during long simmering.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and body to the broth as they soften.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and colour as they cook down into the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the parsley late. Parsley loses its bright colour and fresh flavour with prolonged boiling, so adding it only five minutes before serving keeps both intact.

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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