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Mutton or Lamb Broth

A hearty broth made from mutton or lamb, rice, egg, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme 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 ↓

Mutton or Lamb Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the unsalted meat in a covered pot with water for 2 hours.

  2. Soak the rice in warm water until covered, then add it to the boiling soup with the soaking water.

  3. Cook for 1 hour, stirring occasionally to prevent the rice from sticking.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg and stir it into the cold milk mixed with flour.

  2. Gradually mix in some hot soup liquid until the egg is partially cooked, then pour it into the pot after removing the meat.

  3. Season with parsley, thyme, pepper, and salt, then bring to a boil 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.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  5. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton or lamb
Gives the broth its meaty flavour and body as it simmers.
Rice
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch releases during cooking.
Egg
Enriches the broth and thickens it into a creamy texture when gently heated.
Flour
Stabilises the milk and egg mixture so it blends smoothly and resists curdling.
Milk
Adds richness and a mild sweetness that softens the broth's flavour.

The step that matters

Tempering the egg and milk mixture. Adding the egg mixture straight into hot soup can scramble it. Gradually mixing in hot liquid first raises its temperature slowly, so it thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, rice, egg, milk, parsley, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Turmericfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, rice, egg, milk, parsley, 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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