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Scotch Broth, or Kail

A hearty Scottish soup made with beef or mutton, barley, cabbage, carrots, turnips, peas, and seasoned with sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Scotch Broth, or Kail

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large saucepan, combine 3 quarts of cold water and the pearl barley; bring to a boil.

  2. Once boiling, add the beef or mutton and let it boil gently for 1 hour, skimming occasionally.

  3. Add the finely chopped cabbage and other vegetables; boil for an additional hour, adding water as needed.

Season and serve

  1. Season to taste. The broth is now ready to serve.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + barleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Beef + barleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef or mutton
Gives the broth its meaty flavour and body as it simmers.
Pearl barley
Releases starch as it cooks, thickening the broth and adding a chewy texture.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a mild sweetness as it softens in the broth.
Turnips
Contribute earthy sweetness and soft texture after long simmering.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming during the first hour of boiling. Meat releases foam and fat as it cooks. Skimming it off keeps the broth clear and stops off flavours from forming in the liquid.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, cabbage, carrot, turnip, barley):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, cabbage, carrot, turnip, 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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