Skip to main content
Main

Mutton Broth

A clear broth made from mutton, water, carrots, turnips, barley, onions, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Mutton Broth

Why it works: Carrot and turnip 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 ↓

Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim excess fat from the mutton and cut it into neat pieces.

  2. Place the mutton in a saucepan and cover with cold water.

  3. Bring to a boil and skim off any foam.

  4. Slice the carrots and turnips.

Cook

  1. Add the sliced vegetables, barley, and salt to the saucepan.

  2. Cook gently until everything is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the bones.

  2. Slice the meat.

  3. Serve hot.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 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 + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + barleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together784 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the meat and rich flavour that gives the broth its body.
Barley or tapioca
Thickens the broth as its starch swells during gentle cooking.
Carrots
Add sweetness and colour to the broth as they soften.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and body as they cook until tender.
Onions
Add aromatic depth to the broth as they soften and release flavour.

The step that matters

Skim off any foam after bringing to a boil. Foam carries impurities and fat that would cloud the broth and make it taste muddy. Removing it early keeps the liquid clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, turnip, 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.

More mutton broth recipes

Scotch 33with Chops 5Jelly 3with Roots 3 See all 391 →

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipes