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Scotch Broth

A hearty beef or lamb broth with leeks, carrot, and water, seasoned with coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Scotch Broth

Why it works: Leek and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,310 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Scotch Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the white part of the leeks into small pieces.

  2. Soak all vegetables (except the carrot) in cold water.

  3. Scrape the carrot to a pulp.

Cook

  1. Bring water to a boil.

  2. Add the beef and all vegetables.

  3. Boil for 3 minutes.

  4. Reduce heat and simmer gently for about 4 hours until the meat is tender.

  5. After 2 hours, remove the meat and set aside.

Serve

  1. Return the meat to the pot to heat before serving.

  2. Serve the broth in a tureen.

  3. Serve the meat on a separate dish.

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. Leek + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

  3. Beef + leektop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together659 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, gentle simmering.
Leeks
Add savory, mild onion-like flavour to the broth as they cook.
Carrot
Scraped to a pulp, it adds body and natural sweetness to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for about 4 hours. A gentle simmer lets connective tissue in the meat break down slowly, making it tender. A hard boil toughens the meat and can cloud the broth.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Turnipfits about as well
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot. 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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