Name: Mutton Broth
Ingredients: water from boiled leg of mutton; fat from the mutton; 1 turnip, chopped; 1 onion, chopped; 1 carrot, chopped; 2 teaspoons minced parsley; 1 tablespoon rice; small pieces of neck, ribs, or shank of mutton

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

Take the water in which a leg of mutton has been boiled.
Remove the fat and boil the water for two hours with the turnip, onion, carrot, and mutton pieces.
Add the minced parsley and rice when the water is cold.

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.

Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,842 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + carrottop 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 pieces: Give the broth its meaty flavour and body as they simmer.
Rice: Thickens the broth slightly as its starch releases during cooking.
Turnip: Adds subtle sweetness and aroma to the simmering broth.
Onion: Adds savoury depth and aroma to the broth.
Carrot: Adds gentle sweetness and body to the broth.

Swap the onion

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

Leekfits better
Parsnipfits better
Shallotfits better
Onionthe original

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