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Soup

Scotch Broth

A hearty soup made with mutton, barley, and vegetables, thickened with a butter‑flour roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Scotch Broth

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Scotch Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the meat from the bones and remove all the fat.

  2. Cut the meat into small pieces and place in a soup pot.

Make the broth

  1. Add the turnip, carrot, onion, celery, barley, and cold water.

  2. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

  3. Place the bones in a separate pot with 1 pint of water and simmer for 2 hours.

  4. Strain the bone broth into the soup pot.

Finish the soup

  1. In a small pan, cook the flour and butter together until smooth.

  2. Stir the flour mixture into the soup and add the chopped parsley.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + barleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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

Neck of mutton
Gives the soup its meaty flavour and body as it simmers.
Barley
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch releases during simmering.
Flour
Cooked with butter into a roux, it thickens the soup.
Butter
Carries the flour in the roux and adds richness to the thickening.
Turnip
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the broth as it softens.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and colour to the broth as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour and butter until smooth. Flour left raw or cooked unevenly can taste pasty and form lumps. Cooking it briefly in fat before stirring it into the hot soup lets the starch disperse evenly and thicken smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, turnip, carrot, celery, barley, flour, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, turnip, carrot, celery, barley, flour, butter. 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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