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Mutton Broth

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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

  1. Cut the neck of mutton into two pieces.

Make the broth

  1. Boil the first piece in 1 gallon of water, skimming well.

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

  3. After 1 hour, add the second piece of mutton, turnips, marigolds, chives, and parsley.

  4. Season with salt and cook for another 15 minutes before serving.

  5. Optionally, add barley or rice at the beginning for a heartier 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, savoury flavour that the broth is built on.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and body as they soften in the simmering liquid.
Barley or rice
Optional grain that thickens the broth slightly and makes it more filling.

The step that matters

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, bread, turnip, chive, parsley, barley):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, 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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