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Greek Broth

A Greek broth made with mutton, split peas, ham, onion, carrot, parsley, thyme, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Greek Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the mutton into pieces and remove the bones.

  2. Add the meat and bones to 2 quarts of water.

Cook the broth

  1. Stir in ½ pint of split peas, 2 tablespoons of chopped ham, 1 chopped onion, 1 chopped carrot, parsley, and thyme.

  2. Cook for 3 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the bones, cut up the meat, and press the rest through a sieve.

  2. Season to taste and return the meat to the broth.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 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
Gives the broth its meaty flavour and body as it simmers for hours.
Split peas
Break down during long cooking and thicken the broth, giving it body.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the broth.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it cooks into the broth.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and colour to the broth.

The step that matters

Pressing the rest through a sieve. Split peas soften during the long simmer and must be pushed through the sieve while still hot and tender so they thicken the broth smoothly rather than leaving it grainy or thin.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, ham, onion, carrot, parsley, thyme):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, ham, onion, carrot, parsley, thyme. 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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