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Mutton Broth

A clear broth made from mutton, water, salt, grits, onion, and turnips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Mutton Broth

Why it works: Onion and turnip 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

Prepare the mutton

  1. Remove the blood from the mutton and place it in a stew pan.

  2. Cover the mutton with cold water and let it sit until the water is milk-warm.

  3. Pour the water off.

Make the broth

  1. Add 4 to 5 pints of fresh water, salt, grits, and onion to the pan.

  2. Set the pan on a slow fire.

  3. Skim off any scum that forms.

  4. Add the turnips.

  5. Let the broth simmer slowly for 2 hours.

  6. Strain the broth through a clean sieve.

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. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + turniptop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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 rich, savory flavor.
Grits
Thickens the broth slightly as it simmers, giving it body.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and a subtle earthy flavor to the broth.
Onion
Contributes aromatic flavor that deepens the broth during simmering.

The step that matters

Let the mutton sit in milk-warm water before pouring it off. Soaking the meat in cold water and then discarding that water draws out blood and impurities, which would otherwise cloud the broth and taste harsh.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Turnipthe original
  4. 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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