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Scotch Mutton Broth

A hearty broth made with mutton neck, vegetables, Scotch barley, 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 meat

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

  2. Cut off the scrag and place it in a stew pot with 2 quarts of water.

  3. Bring to a boil, skim well, and simmer for 1.5 hours.

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

Make the broth

  1. Add the mutton pieces to the pot and skim when the fresh meat boils, then every 15 minutes.

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

  3. Add 4 large spoonfuls of Scotch barley that has been wetted with cold water.

  4. Let the meat stew for 3 hours, adding salt to taste.

  5. 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 and best end
Provides the meat and bones that flavour the broth as they simmer for hours.
Scotch barley
Its starch thickens the broth and gives it body as the grains soften.
Carrots, turnips, and onions
Release sugars and aroma into the broth, adding sweetness and body as they cook tender.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth. Foam and fat rise to the surface as the meat simmers. Skimming them off 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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