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Scotch Mutton Broth

A hearty broth made with mutton, barley, carrots, turnips, onions, and parsley.

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

Scotch Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the scrag of mutton and 3 quarts of water in a stewpan. Bring to a boil and skim well.

  2. Reduce heat and simmer for 1.5 hours.

  3. Trim excess fat from the best end of mutton and add it to the broth.

  4. Skim the surface when the meat boils and every 10 minutes thereafter.

Add the vegetables and barley

  1. Add the carrots, turnips, and onions to the soup, ensuring they cook thoroughly.

  2. Stir in the barley and season with coarse sea salt to taste.

  3. Let everything stew together for 3.5 hours.

  4. About 30 minutes before serving, add chopped parsley.

Serve

  1. Remove the meat from the scrag, cut it into small pieces, and serve it in the tureen with the soup.

  2. Serve the remaining mutton on a separate dish with whole boiled turnips around it.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + barleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides rich flavour and collagen that gives the broth body as it simmers.
Barley
Its starch thickens the broth and adds a soft, slightly chewy texture.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour to the broth as they soften.
Turnips
Soften during long cooking and add mild sweetness to the broth.
Onions
Release sugars and aromatic compounds that deepen the broth's savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Skim the surface during simmering. Skimming removes foam and loose fat that would otherwise cloud the broth and leave it greasy. Regular skimming keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting over the long cooking time.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, turnip, barley, 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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