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Veal or Mutton Broth

A clear broth made from mutton or veal, pearl barley or rice, and optional vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and carrot 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 ↓

Veal or Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the mutton in a saucepan with the cold water and pearl barley or rice.

  2. Bring to a boil, skimming well.

  3. Add the salt and let it boil until reduced by half.

  4. Strain the broth and remove all the fat.

Add vegetables and serve

  1. For added vegetables, boil the turnip, carrot, and onion in the broth for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve the barley with the vegetables in the broth if desired.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Barley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Barley + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 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

Mutton
Provides the meaty flavour and body that make up the broth.
Pearl barley or rice
Adds starch that thickens the broth slightly and gives it bulk.
Turnip, carrot, and onion
Add sweetness and vegetable flavour to the broth when boiled in it.

The step that matters

Skimming well while the broth comes to a boil. Foam and impurities rise to the surface as the liquid heats. Removing them early keeps the broth clear and free of off flavours, and it is easier to do before the liquid is reduced.

Swap the turnip

The recipe marks turnip as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, barley, carrot, onion):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Turnipthe original
  3. Potatofits less well
  4. Parsnipfits less well

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