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Scotch Broth

A hearty beef and barley soup with vegetables, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Scotch 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 ↓

Scotch Broth

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, add the beef and cover with water.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour.

  3. Add the onion, carrots, turnip, and barley.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt and pepper, and add herbs if desired.

  2. Simmer for another 1-2 hours until the meat is tender.

  3. Remove the beef, shred it, and return it to the pot 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. 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. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides meaty flavor, and its collagen softens into body in the broth as it simmers.
Barley
Releases starch as it cooks, thickening the broth and giving the soup a hearty texture.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color, and hold their shape through long simmering.
Turnip
Adds a mildly peppery sweetness and firm bite that holds up to long cooking.
Onion
Builds savory depth as its sugars soften and mellow during simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer until the meat is tender. Beef is tough connective tissue that needs long, gentle simmering to break down into tender meat. Rushing it at a rolling boil can toughen the muscle fibers and leave the meat chewy, so keep the liquid at a gentle simmer until it is tender.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, barley, pepper. 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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