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Broth with Chops

A mutton broth simmered with chops, onions, salt, and optional turnips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,585 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Broth with Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove excess fat from the mutton and cut it into thin chops.

  2. Place the chops in a stewpan with onions, salt, and enough cold water to cover them.

Cook

  1. Bring to a boil, skimming off any foam that forms.

  2. Reduce heat and let it simmer for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

  3. If desired, boil turnips in the broth or separately and mash them.

Serve

  1. Serve the broth with the meat.

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.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mutton + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

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

  3. Onion + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

  4. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 recipes

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

  5. Mutton + turniptop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,558 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Supplies the meat and fat that flavour the broth as it simmers.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma to the broth during simmering.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam after boiling. Foam contains coagulated proteins and impurities that rise to the surface as the liquid heats. Removing it keeps the broth clear and prevents a dull, greasy flavour.

Swap the turnip

The recipe marks turnip as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, meat):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, meat. 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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