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Mutton Broth

A simple broth made by simmering lean mutton with barley, water, and salt, optionally flavored with Lemco, parsley, and celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Mutton Broth

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the mutton into pieces.

  2. Add barley, cold water, and salt.

Simmer and strain

  1. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours.

  2. Strain the broth.

  3. Optionally, add Lemco, parsley, and celery for flavor.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Barley + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together571 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Barley + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Mutton + barleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together510 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  5. Mutton + celerytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together928 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Releases flavor and gelatin into the water as it simmers, giving the broth body and richness.
Barley
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch softens during the long simmer.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Pepperfits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, barley, celery. 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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