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A Quick Made Broth

A simple mutton broth made with bones, water, thyme, parsley, onion, and thinly sliced meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

A Quick Made Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the fat and skin from the mutton bones.

  2. Place the bones in a small saucepan with water.

  3. Cut the meat into thin pieces and add to the saucepan.

Simmer

  1. Add thyme, parsley, and onion.

  2. Bring to a boil quickly and skim off any foam.

  3. Cover if it seems too weak; otherwise, leave uncovered.

  4. Cook for 30 minutes.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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 + parsleytop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,915 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton bones
Release collagen that turns to gelatin, giving the broth body and a richer mouthfeel.
Mutton meat
Adds savoury meaty flavour as it cooks into the liquid.
Onion
Adds aromatic, mildly sweet flavour as it simmers.
Thyme
Contributes herbal aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off the foam after bringing to a boil. Foam carries coagulated proteins and impurities that cloud the broth and can taste bitter. Skimming it early keeps the broth clear and clean-flavoured.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, thyme, 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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