Skip to main content
Main

Scotch-Broth

A hearty soup made with beef, barley, vegetables, and herbs, simmered until flavorful.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Scotch-Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the chopped leg of beef in 3 gallons of water with the carrot and crust of bread until half the water has evaporated.

  2. Strain the broth and return it to the pot.

Add the vegetables and barley

  1. Add the barley, celery, onion, sweet herbs, parsley, and marigolds.

  2. Boil the mixture for 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. If using, add the cleaned fowl and boil until the broth is flavorful.

  2. Season with salt and serve with the fowl in the middle, removing the onion and herbs before serving.

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.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Carrot + barleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of beef
Releases meat flavor and gelatin into the water, giving the broth body and savoriness.
Barley
Thickens the broth as its starch releases during simmering and adds chewy texture.
Celery
Adds aromatic vegetable flavor and a subtle savory background to the broth.
Onion
Contributes sweetness and aroma as it softens and flavors the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Boil the broth until half the water has evaporated. Reducing the large volume of water concentrates the flavors from the beef and vegetables. Stopping too early leaves a weak, thin broth, while boiling too hard can make the meat tough and cloudy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, bread, barley, celery, parsley. 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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipes