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Mutton Broth

A hearty broth made from mutton neck, water, herbs, onion, bread, turnips, and optional barley or rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Mutton Broth

Why it works: Turnip and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 109 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Cut the neck of mutton in two.

  2. Boil the mutton in 1 gallon of water.

  3. Skim the broth well.

  4. Add the bundle of sweet herbs, onion, and crust of bread.

  5. Let it boil for 1 hour.

  6. Add barley or rice at the beginning.

Finish and season

  1. Add the other part of the mutton, turnips, dried marigolds, chives, and parsley 15 minutes before the broth is done.

  2. Season with salt.

  3. For a thicker broth, use oatmeal or additional bread.

  4. If boiling turnips for sauce, do so separately to avoid overpowering the broth.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of mutton
Provides the meat and rich flavour that the broth is built on.
Bread
Its starch helps thicken the broth and give it body.
Barley or rice
Adds starch that softens and gives the broth more body.
Turnips
Add a mild, slightly sweet vegetable flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

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

Swap the mace

The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, bread, turnip, chive, parsley, barley):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, bread, turnip, chive, parsley, barley. 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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