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Scotch Broth

A hearty mutton soup with barley, carrots, turnip, onion, peas, parsley, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Scotch 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 ↓

Scotch Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the mutton in water.

  2. Stir in the Scotch barley and keep mixed until boiling.

  3. Skim the surface carefully while simmering.

Add vegetables and finish

  1. Add the chopped carrots, turnip, onion, green peas, parsley, pepper, and salt.

  2. Cook the vegetables until tender, but do not overboil.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Barley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 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
Provides the main meat flavor and richness to the broth as it simmers.
Scotch barley
Releases starch as it cooks, thickening the broth and giving it body.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color while holding their shape in the simmering broth.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and a earthy flavor that deepens the broth.
Green peas
Add sweetness and bright color near the end of cooking.

The step that matters

Cook the vegetables until tender, but do not overboil. Overcooking breaks down the vegetables into mush and can make the broth cloudy and dull, so they should be checked for tenderness and removed from heat as soon as they are soft.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, barley, carrot, turnip, onion, parsley, pepper. 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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