Why it works: Turnip and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,585 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Mutton Broth
Ingredients
Directions
Place the mutton in a pot with the cold water.
Add turnip and onion if desired.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer slowly for 3 hours.
Skim off all the fat before serving.
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.
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Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,531 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Mutton + turniptop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,558 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
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 fat that give the broth its flavour and body.
- Cold water
- Serves as the liquid that extracts flavour and gelatin from the meat as it simmers.
The step that matters
Simmer slowly rather than boiling hard. A gentle simmer draws flavour and body from the meat while keeping the broth clear. A rolling boil emulsifies fat into the liquid and makes it cloudy and greasy.
Swap the turnip
The recipe marks turnip as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion):
- Leekfits better
- Potatofits better
- Turnipthe original
- Chivefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion. 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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