Skip to main content
Main

Scotch Broth

A hearty mutton and barley broth with carrots, turnip, onion, celery, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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

  1. Remove fat and skin from the mutton and cut the meat into small pieces.

  2. Dice the carrots, turnip, onion, and celery.

  3. Boil the bones in 1 pint of cold water.

  4. Boil the meat in 3 pints of cold water.

  5. When the broth boils, add the soaked barley.

Make the broth

  1. Fry the diced vegetables in 2 tablespoons of butter for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the fried vegetables to the meat.

  3. Cook slowly for 4 hours.

  4. Strain the bones from the water.

  5. Add the strained liquid to the meat along with salt and pepper.

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. Carrot + turniptop 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

Mutton
Provides the meat and rich flavor that gives the broth its body.
Barley
Thickens the broth as its starch softens during the long simmer.
Butter
Fat that carries flavor and browns the diced vegetables before they join the broth.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory depth as it softens in the butter.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and color to the broth as it cooks slowly.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 4 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear and lets the meat and bones release collagen and flavor without toughening the meat. A hard boil makes the broth cloudy and the meat stringy.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipes