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Scotch Broth
2 pounds neck mutton, 1 cup barley, 1 cup peas, 1 carrot, 1 turnip, 1 teaspoon sugar, 3 onions or leeks, 1 tablespoon Crisco, 1 small cabbage, 1 tablespoon chopped parsley, 16 cups water or stock, salt and pepper to taste. Prepare vegetables and cut them into small pieces. Put water or stock into large earthenware pan, and when it boils, add meat and barley. Boil up, skimming frequently, add vegetables, and then simmer for 3 hours. Now stir in one extra carrot grated, salt and pepper, sugar and Crisco. Simmer again for 30 minutes. Add parsley and broth is ready to serve.
A straightforward long-simmered broth, but the ingredient list assumes a 1915 larder and a family-sized pot. Two things need attention before you start: the size of the batch, and what the "peas" are.
- Yield and pot sizeSixteen cups of liquid plus meat and vegetables needs a stockpot of at least 6 quarts. This is 10 to 12 servings; halve everything for a household of four.
- The peas are driedIn a broth simmered three hours, "1 cup peas" means dried split peas or whole dried green peas, not garden peas. Split peas will dissolve into the broth and thicken it; soaked whole peas hold their shape.
- Neck muttonMutton — sheep over a year old — is rare in most markets now. Use 2 lb of lamb neck, or lamb shoulder chops on the bone; the bone and connective tissue are what give the broth body, so avoid boneless cuts.
- The earthenware panAn earthenware or glazed stoneware vessel was prized for even, gentle heat on a coal range. A heavy stainless or enamelled cast-iron stockpot does the same job on a modern burner.
- CriscoCrisco was new in 1911 and this book was published to promote it, which is why a tablespoon of shortening appears in a soup that does not need it. Butter is better here, or leave it out — 2 lb of lamb neck renders plenty of fat on its own.
- Skim, then chill and skim againThe frequent skimming during the first boil removes protein scum and is what keeps the broth clear. For a cleaner result, cool the finished broth and lift the set fat off the top before reheating.
- The grated carrot at the endThis is the hinge. Adding raw grated carrot in the last half hour restores colour and fresh sweetness after three hours of simmering has flattened the first carrot entirely. Do not skip it or fold it in earlier.
- Cabbage timingA small cabbage added at the start with the root vegetables will be sulphurous and grey after three and a half hours. Shred it and add it with the grated carrot for the final 30 minutes.
- SaltIf you use commercial stock rather than water, hold the salt until the last 30 minutes; three hours of reduction concentrates whatever was already in it.
Scotch broth is a long-established form of Scottish cookery: mutton, barley and whatever roots the kitchen garden held, cooked slowly in one pot. Barley rather than rice or wheat is the marker — it grew reliably in the Scottish climate and served as both thickener and staple grain. The dish travelled well into English and American cookbooks through the nineteenth century, usually under the same name, and by the time it reached a book like this one it had become a standard "economical" entry: a cheap bone-in cut stretched with grain and vegetables to feed a large table. Its appearance here with a tablespoon of Crisco stirred in at the end is a reminder of what this particular volume was for. A Calendar of Dinners was issued by the makers of Crisco, then only a few years on the market, and recipes throughout were adjusted to find a place for the new shortening whether the dish called for one or not.