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Of Soups and Broths

A hearty mutton broth simmered with vegetables, herbs, and spices, finished with a bacon and beef sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 23 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and turnip 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 ↓

Of Soups and Broths

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine mutton and water in a large pot, bring to a boil, skim impurities, and season with onions, leeks, celery, carrots, turnips, sweet herbs, cloves, allspice, and salt.

  2. Skim the surface again and let the broth simmer gently for six hours.

  3. Strain the broth and set aside for later use.

Make the gravy base

  1. Place the bacon in a stewpan.

  2. Layer the beef, sliced carrot, sliced onion, crust of bread, sweet herbs, mace, cloves, nutmeg, and whole pepper on top.

  3. Add the anchovy, cover, and cook on low heat for five to six minutes.

  4. Pour in one quart of the prepared gravy, cover tightly, and let it simmer until reduced by half.

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. Leek + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Leek + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 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
Gives the broth its main meaty flavour and body as it simmers.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the broth as they cook down.
Leeks
Add a mild onion sweetness and aroma to the broth.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savoury flavour to the broth.
Beef
Adds meaty flavour to the gravy base as it cooks.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky, savoury flavour to the base in the stewpan.

The step that matters

Simmer the gravy until reduced by half. Slow reduction concentrates flavour and thickens the liquid. Cooking too hard can make it cloudy or greasy, and covering tightly keeps the liquid from evaporating too fast.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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