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Mutton Broth

A savory broth made from mutton, onion, optional turnip, pearl barley, pepper, sea salt, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Mutton Broth

Why it works: Turnip and barley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 629 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton Broth

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the mutton into small pieces.

  2. Place the mutton and chopped vegetables in a saucepan.

  3. Heat slowly for one hour.

  4. Scald the pearl barley by washing it, boiling for 10 minutes, and straining.

  5. Add the scalded barley to the saucepan and cook for one more hour.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + barleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,166 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides rich meat flavor, and its collagen turns into gelatin that gives the broth body.
Pearl barley
Its starch thickens the broth and adds a soft, chewy texture.
Onion
Softens and sweetens during slow cooking, adding aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Heat slowly for one hour. A gentle, slow heat keeps the broth at a low simmer, so the mutton becomes tender and the broth stays clear instead of turning cloudy and greasy.

Swap the turnip

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, 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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