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Mutton Broth

A hearty broth made from mutton scrags, onions, turnips, carrot, and pearl barley, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Mutton Broth

Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Joint the bones of the mutton scrags and place them in a stewpan.

  2. Add the onions, turnips, carrot, and fill the stewpan with water.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let it simmer for 3 hours, skimming regularly.

Add the vegetables and barley

  1. In another stewpan, cut the small carrot, turnips, onion, leek, and celery into small pieces.

  2. Add the pearl barley to the vegetables.

  3. Skim the fat from the broth and pour it through a sieve over the vegetables.

  4. Let it boil gently until the barley is tender.

Serve

  1. Serve the meat in neat pieces with the broth, or separately with melted butter and parsley, or onion sauce.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Barley + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together142 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + barleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 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 scrags (neck)
Bones and meat release flavour and gelatin into the water as it simmers slowly.
Pearl barley
Swells as it cooks, thickening the broth and giving it body.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma to the broth as they soften.
Turnips
Soften during simmering, adding mild sweetness and body to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth. Fat and foam rise to the surface during simmering. Removing them regularly keeps the broth clear and stops it tasting greasy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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