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Scotch Broth

A hearty soup made with barley, groats, turnips, carrots, butter, bread crust, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Scotch Broth

Why it works: Turnip and carrot 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the barley and groats in water for soup preparation.

  2. In a pan, combine soaked barley, groats, and boiling water.

Cook

  1. Boil for 2 hours.

  2. Add diced turnips and carrots.

  3. When vegetables are tender, add pot-herbs and seasoning.

  4. Simmer until everything is cooked through.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Barley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Barley + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together784 recipes

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Barley + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together201 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Barley
Thickens the broth and gives it a soft, chewy body as its starch releases during long boiling.
Groats
Add body and a hearty, grainy texture as they soften and release starch into the liquid.
Turnips
Contribute mild sweetness and a tender, soft texture after simmering.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color while softening into the broth.

The step that matters

Boil for 2 hours. A long, steady boil is needed to soften the barley and groats fully and release their starch, which thickens the broth. Too short a cook leaves the grains hard and the soup thin.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, turnip, butter, 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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