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Mutton Broth

A savory broth made by simmering mutton neck with herbs, bread, onion, turnips, and optional pearl barley.

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 chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 109 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, boil the neck of mutton in 1 gallon of water, skimming well.

  2. If using, add pearl barley at the beginning.

  3. Add the sweet herbs, crust of bread, and onion; boil for 1 hour.

Finish and season

  1. Add the other half of the mutton, turnips, marigolds, chives, and parsley 10 minutes before finishing.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

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 + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together109 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + barleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton neck
Gives the broth its meaty flavor and body as it simmers.
Pearl barley
Adds body and thickens the broth slightly as it cooks.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and earthy flavor to the broth.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the mutton at the start. Meat releases foam and fat as it first heats. Skimming removes these impurities, giving a clearer, cleaner-tasting broth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, bread, turnip, chive, parsley, barley):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, bread, turnip, chive, parsley, 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.

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