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Mutton Broth

A clear mutton broth made with water, salt, flour, onion, turnips, and garnished with parsley.

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

Why it works: Turnip and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,842 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Place the mutton in a stewpan and cover it with cold water.

  2. When the water is lukewarm, pour it off and skim the surface.

Simmer the broth

  1. Add 4 pints of fresh water, salt, grits or flour, and the onion.

  2. Set the stewpan on low heat and remove any scum that rises.

  3. Add the halved turnips and let it simmer slowly for 2 hours.

  4. Strain the broth through a clean cloth or sieve.

  5. Garnish with chopped parsley before serving.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the meat flavor and rich body that the broth is built on.
Grits or coarse flour
Thickens the broth slightly, giving it more body as it simmers.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and aroma to the simmering broth.

The step that matters

Removing the scum. Scum that rises during the first heating contains coagulated proteins and impurities. Skimming it keeps the broth clear and free of off flavors.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, turnip, parsley. 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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