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Mutton Broth

A clear broth made from mutton, vegetables, and pearl barley, seasoned with parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Mutton Broth

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 ↓

Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove all fat from the mutton.

  2. Cut the mutton into small pieces.

Make the broth

  1. Put water into a stewpan.

  2. Add meat, bones, and a little salt.

  3. Bring slowly to a boil.

  4. Skim well.

  5. Put pearl-barley into cold water.

  6. Bring pearl-barley to a boil.

  7. Cut vegetables into small dice or cubes.

  8. Wait until broth has cooked for 1 hour.

  9. Add diced vegetables and pearl-barley to the broth.

  10. Simmer gently for 3 hours.

  11. Strain and return to saucepan.

  12. Carefully remove any fragments of bone from the meat, vegetables, and pearl-barley.

  13. Return them to the broth.

  14. Sprinkle in parsley.

  15. Season to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of mutton
Gives the broth its rich meaty flavour as it simmers for hours.
Pearl-barley
Softens as it cooks and thickens the broth slightly.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and body to the broth as it softens.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and colour to the broth.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim well. Skimming the foam that rises during the first boil removes coagulated proteins and impurities, keeping the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, carrot, turnip, celery, parsley, rice, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, turnip, celery, parsley, rice, pepper. 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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