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To Make Mutton Broth

A simple broth made by simmering mutton, water, bread crust, mace, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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To Make Mutton Broth

Why it works: Mutton and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,488 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Make Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the fat from the mutton.

  2. Combine the mutton and water in a pot and bring to a boil, then skim the surface well.

Simmer and strain

  1. Add the upper crust of bread and the blade of mace.

  2. Cover and simmer gently for 1 hour without stirring.

  3. Pour the broth off carefully.

  4. Season with a little coarse sea salt.

Serve

  1. The mutton can be served as well.

  2. Boil turnips separately in another saucepan.

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. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Bread + macetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,005 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Mutton + macetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together827 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Loin of mutton
Gives the broth its meaty flavour and richness as it simmers.
Water
Forms the base liquid that draws flavour out of the meat.
Blade of mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer gently without stirring. A hard boil or stirring churns fat and meat particles into the liquid, making the broth cloudy and greasy. A gentle simmer lets fat rise and particles settle, giving a clearer, cleaner broth.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Pepperfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, bread. 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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