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Scotch Broth
2 lbs. mutton (neck) 1/2 lb. (I cup) barley 1/2 pint (I cup) peas I carrot I turnip 1 teaspoonful sugar 3 onions or leeks 1 teaspoonful dripping I small cabbage 1 tablespoonful chopped parsley 4 quarts (16 cups) water or stock Salt and pepper to taste Prepare the vegetables and cut them into small pieces. Put the water or stock into a large earthenware pan, and when it boils, add the meat and the barley. Boil up, skimming frequently, add the vegetables, and then simmer for three hours. Now stir in one extra carrot grated, the salt and pepper, sugar and dripping. Simmer again for thirty minutes.
Add the parsley and the broth is ready to serve.
The mutton may be served separately with potatoes.
A thrifty two-course dinner disguised as a soup: the broth goes to table first, the boiled meat after. The proportions are generous and the pot needs to be large.
- The vesselThe recipe calls for a large earthenware pan. Most modern earthenware is not safe over a direct flame; use a heavy stockpot or an enamelled Dutch oven, and note that 4 quarts of water plus meat and vegetables wants roughly an 8-quart pot to skim comfortably.
- Mutton neckMutton is sheep over roughly two years old, strongly flavoured and full of connective tissue, which is exactly what makes the broth. Lamb neck or shoulder chops on the bone are the practical substitute; the flavour will be milder and 2 to 2.5 hours may be enough.
- The peas are ambiguous"1/2 pint (1 cup) peas" in a British broth of this era most likely means dried split peas, measured dry, and they will cook down into the liquid over three hours. If you read it as fresh green peas, add them in the last ten minutes instead. The original does not say.
- BarleyA cup of pearl barley is a lot for this pot and will thicken the broth substantially as it stands. Traditional Scotch broth used pot barley (hulled, less polished), which holds its shape better and takes longer; either works, but expect a spoon-coating consistency by the second day.
- Cabbage timingAdded at the start and simmered three hours, a small cabbage disintegrates and turns sulphurous. Shred it and put it in for the final thirty minutes with the grated carrot if you want it recognisable.
- Skim before you seasonSalt goes in only after the long simmer, which is correct: 4 quarts reduces considerably over three and a half hours, and salting early leaves the finished broth too strong. Skim the grey foam off in the first ten minutes of the boil, before the vegetables go in, or it clings to them.
- The grated carrot and the drippingThe raw carrot stirred in near the end is for sweetness and colour, not bulk, and the teaspoon of dripping adds a little richness to a broth that has been degreased by skimming. Butter or a spoon of the fat skimmed off the top does the same job.
- YieldTen to twelve servings of broth, plus the mutton as a separate course with boiled potatoes. It keeps three or four days refrigerated and improves overnight, though you will need to thin it with stock.
Scotch broth belongs to the family of long-simmered barley broths that were everyday food across Scotland and northern England, where barley grew reliably and mutton was the meat of an animal kept first for wool and milk. The dish is sometimes called barley broth or, in older sources, hotch-potch when made with summer vegetables; the defining pair is always mutton and barley, with whatever roots the garden held. The instruction to serve the meat separately with potatoes is the key to how it was eaten: one pot, two courses, and nothing wasted. The call for an earthenware pan suits the method: a vessel that could sit for hours on a low fire or in the falling heat of a range oven.