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Mutton Broth

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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

  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 the chopped parsley 5 minutes before serving.

  5. 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 as it simmers into the broth.
Rice
Releases starch as it cooks, thickening the broth and giving it body.
Turnips
Add sweetness and earthy flavour as they soften in the simmering liquid.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and colour as they soften in the broth.

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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