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Mutton Broth

A clear broth made by simmering mutton with vegetables, herbs, and bread crust, served with the meat.

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 broth

  1. Put a piece of mutton into 3-4 quarts of water.

  2. Bring the water to a boil.

  3. Skim the broth as soon as it boils.

  4. Add a carrot, turnip, crust of bread, onion, and herbs.

  5. Let the mixture simmer.

  6. Add the other part of the neck of the mutton.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil until the mutton is tender.

  2. Remove the mutton from the pot.

  3. Strain the broth.

  4. Return the mutton to the pot with dried marigolds, chives, or young onions, and chopped parsley.

  5. Boil for about 15 minutes.

  6. Serve the broth and mutton together in a tureen, or the meat in a separate dish.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together109 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 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 meaty flavour and becomes tender during long simmering.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the broth as it cooks.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and earthy flavour to the broth.
Onion
Contributes savoury depth and aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim the broth as soon as it boils. Skimming removes the foam and fat that rise when the liquid first boils. Removing them early keeps the broth clear and stops it tasting greasy or cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, carrot, turnip, bread, chive, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, turnip, bread, chive, 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.

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