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To Make Mutton Broth Quickly

A quick mutton broth made by simmering chopped mutton, herbs, onion, pepper, and salt in cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Make Mutton Broth Quickly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat into small pieces.

  2. Place the pieces in a saucepan with bones, cold water, and no skin or fat.

  3. Add the sweet herbs, onion, pepper, and salt.

  4. Cover the saucepan.

Cook and finish

  1. Bring the water to a boil quickly.

  2. Remove the lid.

  3. Continue boiling rapidly for 20 minutes, skimming the surface frequently.

  4. Strain the broth into a basin.

  5. If any fat remains on the surface, remove it by laying a piece of thin paper on top to absorb the grease.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meaty flavour and gelatin-rich body as it simmers in the water.
Bones (in the method)
Release collagen and minerals during simmering, giving the broth body and a richer mouthfeel.
Cold water
Acts as the cooking liquid that extracts flavour from the meat and bones.
Onion
Adds aromatic depth to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Skimming the surface during the rapid boil. Rapid boiling churns fat and scum into the liquid, which can make the broth cloudy and greasy. Skimming removes these impurities so the broth stays clearer and cleaner-tasting.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, 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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