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Scotch Broth

A hearty mutton broth with turnip, carrots, onion, celery, barley, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Scotch Broth

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Scotch Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the meat from the bone, removing all the fat, and cut it into small pieces.

Make the broth

  1. Put the meat into a soup pot with the sliced turnip, carrots, onion, celery, and pearled barley.

  2. Add 3 to 8 cups of water and boil gently for 2 hours.

  3. Boil the bones with 1 quart of water for 2 hours.

  4. Drain the bones into the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Cook the flour and butter together until smooth, then stir this into the soup.

  2. Add chopped parsley, season with salt and pepper, and serve immediately.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 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 + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 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 neck meat
Provides the main savoury flavour and body as it simmers into the broth.
Pearled barley
Releases starch as it cooks, thickening the broth and adding a chewy texture.
Flour
Cooked with butter and stirred in, it thickens the broth to a smoother consistency.
Butter
Cooked with the flour to form a roux, adding richness and helping the thickening stay smooth.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the broth as they soften during simmering.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour and butter until smooth. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps, so cooking it with butter first coats the starch granules and lets them disperse evenly when stirred in.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, turnip, carrot, celery, barley, flour, butter. 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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