Name: Mutton Broth
Ingredients: 1 scrag of mutton, cut into small pieces; 2 quarts water; 3 or 4 turnips; 1 blade of mace; ½ teacup rice

Why it works: Turnip and rice work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

In a saucepan, combine the mutton, water, turnips, and mace.
Stew until the meat falls off the bones.
Strain the broth through a sieve, skimming off all the fat.

Add the rice

Wash the rice and boil it in the 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.

Turnip + ricetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together824 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Mutton + ricetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,019 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mace + ricetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together932 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Mutton + turniptop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,558 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Turnip + macetop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,100 recipes

Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).