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Scotch Broth

A hearty soup of mutton, vegetables, barley, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Scotch Broth

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Scotch Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the meat from the bones of the mutton into small pieces and remove all the fat.

Make the broth

  1. Combine the meat, turnip, carrot, onion, celery, pearl barley, and cold water in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer the mixture for two hours.

  3. Simmer the bones in 1 pint of water for two hours in another pot.

  4. Strain the liquid from the bones into the broth.

Thicken and serve

  1. Cook the flour and butter together in a small pan until smooth.

  2. Stir the flour and butter mixture into the broth.

  3. Add the chopped parsley to the broth.

  4. Season the broth with salt and pepper to taste.

  5. Serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + barleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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 neck
Gives the broth its rich meaty flavour and body as it simmers.
Pearl barley
Releases starch during simmering, thickening the broth and adding a soft chewy texture.
Turnip
Adds sweetness and body to the broth as it softens during cooking.
Flour
Cooked with butter and stirred in, it thickens the broth slightly.

The step that matters

Cook the flour and butter until smooth. Cooking flour in fat before adding it to liquid helps it disperse evenly, preventing lumps and giving a smooth, lightly thickened broth.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, turnip, carrot, celery, barley, flour, butter. 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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