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Scotch Broth

A hearty soup made with mutton broth, rice, carrots, turnip, celery, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Scotch Broth

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Scotch Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Remove all fat from the mutton broth.

  2. Pour the defatted broth into a saucepan.

Make the soup

  1. Wash the rice.

  2. Add the washed rice to the broth along with the diced vegetables.

  3. Simmer the mixture slowly without a lid for one hour.

  4. Add coarse sea salt to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve in a tureen.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Rice + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,477 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Rice + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Thickens the broth as its starch releases during slow simmering.
Mutton broth
Forms the flavorful liquid base of the soup.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body as it softens in the broth.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and body as it softens in the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly without a lid for one hour. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear and lets the rice and vegetables cook through evenly. A vigorous boil can cloud the broth and break up the vegetables.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Turnipthe original
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Parsnipfits less well
  4. Tomatofits less well

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