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Scotch Mutton Broth

A hearty broth made with mutton neck, water, carrots, turnips, onions, Scotch barley, salt, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Scotch Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Soak the neck of mutton in water for 1 hour.

  2. Cut off the scrag from the neck.

  3. Place the neck in a stew pot with 2 quarts of water.

  4. Bring the liquid to a boil.

  5. Skim the surface well.

  6. Simmer for 1.5 hours.

  7. Cut the best end of the mutton into pieces, each with 2 bones, removing some fat.

  8. Skim the broth when the fresh meat boils and every 15 minutes thereafter.

Add the vegetables and barley

  1. Add the carrots, turnips, and onions to the pot and cook until tender.

  2. Stir in the wetted Scotch Barley.

  3. Let the meat stew for 3 hours.

  4. Season with salt to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve all together.

  2. Twenty minutes before serving, add chopped parsley.

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.

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 + barleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 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. 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
Provides the meat and bones that flavour the broth as it simmers slowly.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the broth as they soften during cooking.
Turnips
Soften during long cooking, adding mild sweetness and body to the broth.
Onions
Add savoury depth and sweetness as they cook down into the broth.
Scotch barley
Releases starch as it cooks, thickening the broth and giving it body.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth. Foam and fat rise to the surface as the meat boils. Skimming them regularly keeps the broth clear and stops it tasting greasy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, turnip, barley, 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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