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Mutton Broth

A clear broth made from mutton, vegetables, and pearl barley, simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Mutton Broth

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove all fat from the mutton and cut it into small pieces.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the cold water, mutton, bones, and a little salt.

  3. Bring the mixture slowly to a boil and skim off any foam.

  4. If using pearl-barley, blanch it in cold water and bring to a boil.

Simmer

  1. Cut the vegetables into small dice and add them to the broth after it has cooked for 1 hour, along with the pearl-barley.

  2. Simmer the broth gently for 3 hours, then strain and return it to the saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove any bone fragments from the meat, vegetables, and pearl-barley, and return them to the broth.

  2. Bring the broth back to a boil, sprinkle in the parsley, season to taste, and 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.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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 flavour and gelatin that give the broth body.
Cold water
Serves as the base liquid, extracting flavour from the meat and bones as it heats.
Rice or pearl-barley
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch releases during simmering.
Onion
Adds savoury, aromatic sweetness to the broth as it cooks.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and colour to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off any foam after bringing to a boil. Foam carries impurities and proteins from the meat; removing it early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting rather than cloudy or greasy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, carrot, turnip, celery, parsley, rice, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, turnip, celery, parsley, rice, pepper. 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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