Name: Mutton Broth for the Sick
Ingredients: 1 pound mutton chops, trimmed of fat; 1 quart cold water; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 turnip, peeled and sliced; 1 small onion, peeled and sliced

Why it works: Turnip and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,585 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton Broth for the Sick

Ingredients

1 pound mutton chops, trimmed of fat
1 quart cold water
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 turnip, peeled and sliced
1 small onion, peeled and sliced

Directions

Make the broth

Place the mutton chops in a pot with cold water and salt.
Simmer gently until it comes to a boil.
Skim off any foam that forms on the surface.
Add the turnip and onion, then simmer for 2 more hours.
Strain the broth into a deep pan and let it cool.
Remove the layer of fat that forms on top.

Serve

Reheat the broth as needed and serve the meat with some broth poured over it for gravy.

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.

Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,531 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Mutton + turniptop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,558 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton chops: Release flavor and gelatin into the water, giving the broth body and savory depth.
Turnip: Adds mild sweetness and earthy flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Onion: Contributes aromatic sweetness and savory depth to the broth during long simmering.

The step that matters

Skim off the foam as it rises. Foam contains coagulated proteins and impurities that can cloud the broth and taint its flavor if left to recombine with the liquid.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion):

Leekfits better
Potatofits better
Turnipthe original
Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion. 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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Mutton Broth for the Sick