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Mutton Chop Broth

A broth made by simmering lean mutton chops with onions and salt, optionally adding turnips and potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mutton Chop Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut mutton into thin chops.

  2. Place chops in a stew pan and cover with cold water.

  3. Add onions and a little coarse sea salt.

Stew

  1. Stew slowly for 45 minutes, skimming as needed.

Serve

  1. Optionally, boil turnips and potatoes in the broth or separately and mash them.

  2. Serve the broth and meat together.

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 + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Mutton + potatotop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean mutton chops
Provide the meat, whose connective tissue softens into tenderness during slow stewing.
Cold water
Starting cold lets flavour and gelatin dissolve gradually into the liquid as it heats.
Onions
Add aroma and mild sweetness to the broth as they soften in the liquid.

The step that matters

Skimming the stew. Foam and scum rise to the surface as the meat heats. Removing them keeps the broth clear and stops impurities from making it taste muddy or greasy.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

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