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Mutton Broth

A clear broth made by simmering mutton, onion, turnips, and grits in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Mutton Broth

Why it works: Onion and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,585 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Place the mutton in a stew pan and cover it with cold water.

  2. When the water is warm, pour it off.

Simmer the broth

  1. Add 4 to 5 pints of fresh water, salt, grits, and onion.

  2. Set on low heat and remove any scum that forms.

  3. Add turnips and let it simmer slowly for 2 hours.

  4. Strain the broth through a clean sieve.

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. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + turniptop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,558 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton scrag
Gives the broth its meaty flavour and body as it simmers.
Grits
Thickens the broth slightly as the starch releases during simmering.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and aromatic depth to the simmering broth.

The step that matters

Remove the scum as it forms. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities rising from the meat. Skimming it keeps the broth clear and prevents off-flavours from dispersing back into the liquid.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Turnipthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion. 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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