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Scotch Broth

A hearty mutton soup with barley, vegetables, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Scotch Broth

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 ↓

Scotch Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cut the mutton into small pieces and place in a stewpan with the cold water and salt.

  2. Cook gently for 2 hours.

  3. Wash the barley and dice the vegetables.

  4. Add the vegetables and barley to the broth and cook for another hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the broth and return it to the stewpan.

  2. Cut the meat into small pieces, remove any bone fragments from the vegetables and barley, and add them to the broth.

  3. Heat until hot, season to taste, and 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. Leek + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Leek + barleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together142 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 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
Its meat and bones release flavour and gelatin into the broth as it cooks gently.
Scotch barley
Its starch thickens the broth and gives the soup body as it simmers.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the broth as it cooks.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and colour, and softens to give the soup body.

The step that matters

Cooking the mutton gently in cold water. Starting in cold water and simmering gently lets the meat release its flavour and gelatin slowly into the broth. Boiling hard makes the meat tough and the broth cloudy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, leek, carrot, turnip, celery, parsley, barley. 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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