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Mutton Bboth

A broth made from mutton bones, onions, carrots, turnips, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Mutton Bboth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Set aside the water the mutton was boiled in.

  2. The next day, remove all the fat from the broth.

Simmer and finish

  1. Pour the broth into a pot and add the cracked bones, onions, carrots, and turnips.

  2. Boil for 1-2 hours.

  3. Remove the bones with a skimmer.

  4. Add the rice and salt, then boil for another hour.

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.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Carrot + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,477 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Turnip + ricetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together824 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

Bones of mutton
Release collagen and marrow flavor that give the broth body and a rich taste.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma as they soften in the simmering liquid.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and color as they soften into the broth.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and earthy flavor as they cook down.
Rice
Releases starch that lightly thickens the broth and softens as it cooks.

The step that matters

Remove all the fat from the broth. Fat that has cooled and set on top of the broth can be lifted off cleanly, which keeps the broth clear and prevents it from tasting greasy.

Swap the onion

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

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

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