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Scotch Broth

A hearty barley soup with cabbage, carrots, onions, leeks, turnips, green peas, and beans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Scotch Broth

Why it works: Leek and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Scotch Broth

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine barley and enough water to cover in a large pot.

  2. Chop and add any available vegetables: cabbage, carrots, onions, leeks, turnips, green peas, and beans.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are tender.

  4. If desired, grate a carrot and add it to the soup 30 minutes before serving.

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. Leek + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Barley + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together142 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cabbage + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Barley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 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

Barley
Thickens the broth as its starch releases during simmering, giving the soup body.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color while holding their shape through long simmering.

Swap the carrot

The recipe marks carrot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, cabbage, onion, leek, turnip, peas, beans):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, cabbage, onion, leek, turnip, peas, beans. 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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