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Mutton Broth

A hearty broth made by simmering mutton shoulder with vegetables, rice, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Mutton Broth

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

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

  2. Add the onion, turnips, carrots, salt, and rice, then boil for an additional 1.5 hours.

  3. Add chopped parsley 5 minutes before serving.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Shoulder of mutton
Long simmering breaks down connective tissue, making the meat tender and flavouring the broth.
Rice
Starch released as it cooks thickens the broth slightly and adds body.
Turnips
Soften during long simmering and add mild sweetness and body to the broth.
Carrots
Soften during long simmering and add mild sweetness to the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the rice and vegetables. Rice can overcook and turn mushy during the long simmer, and the vegetables can disintegrate if boiled too hard. Keeping a gentle simmer helps the rice stay intact and the broth clear.

Swap the onion

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

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

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