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Mutton Broth, French Style

A hearty broth made from mutton, beef, vegetables, and barley, served with French bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mutton Broth, French Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Pare the mutton.

  2. Save the chops for another dish.

  3. Bone the shoulder.

  4. Tie the shoulder with string.

  5. Trim the breast.

Make the broth

  1. Place all mutton parts except the chops in a soup pot.

  2. Add the soup beef, parsley, carrots, turnip, celery, onion with cloves, and water.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  5. Skim the broth well.

  6. Let it boil slowly for two hours.

  7. Remove the breast and shoulder for another meal.

  8. Continue boiling the broth for two more hours.

  9. Add stock or hot water as needed.

  10. Skim the grease from the broth.

  11. Strain the broth through a napkin.

Serve

  1. Cut thin slices of French bread.

  2. Place the bread slices in a tureen with the cooked barley.

  3. Pour the boiling broth into the tureen.

  4. 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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 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
Provides the main meaty flavour and rich body of the broth as it simmers.
Soup beef
Adds extra beef flavour and gelatin, deepening the body of the broth.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and aroma to the broth as they cook.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the broth.
Cooked barley
Adds body and texture when served in the tureen with the broth.

The step that matters

Skim the broth well. Skimming removes foam and loose fat that rise as the meat simmers. Removing them early keeps the broth clear and stops it tasting greasy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, beef, parsley, carrot, turnip, celery, onion):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, beef, parsley, carrot, turnip, celery, onion. 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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