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Scotch Broth

A hearty soup of mutton, barley, vegetables, and herbs simmered in water.

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

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Scotch Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the barley overnight.

  2. Remove skin, bone, and gristle from the mutton.

  3. Simmer the bones in 1 pint of water.

Simmer and finish

  1. In a separate pot, combine the meat, diced vegetables, water, barley, salt, pepper, and parsley.

  2. Simmer for three hours.

  3. Cook the butter and flour together, then blend with the stock from the bones.

  4. Add the mixture to the broth, season to taste, and serve.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Barley + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together630 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Barley + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together582 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pearl barley
Thickens the broth as its starch releases during long simmering.
Mutton
Provides the main meat and rich, savory flavor as it cooks down.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the stock smoothly when blended in.

The step that matters

Cooking the butter and flour together. Cooking the flour in fat before adding liquid toasts the starch and prevents lumps, so the stock thickens smoothly instead of clumping.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, mutton, pepper, butter, flour. 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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