Skip to main content
Main

Pepper Pot

A hearty tripe soup with potatoes, spices, and dumplings, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Marjoram and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 125 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pepper Pot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tripe

  1. Soak the tripe in salt water for 1–2 hours.

  2. In a large pot, combine the tripe and 6 quarts of water with salt and red pepper.

  3. Boil until the tripe is tender, which may take nearly all day.

  4. Leave the tripe in the water overnight, out of the pot.

  5. Cut the tripe into small pieces, flour it well, and return it to the reheated liquid.

Make the soup

  1. Add the potatoes, cloves, allspice, marjoram, savory, and basil.

  2. Boil for 2 hours.

  3. About 30 minutes before serving, add dumplings made from flour, shortening, salt, and water, shaped like marbles.

  4. Thicken the soup with a mixture of butter and flour until it reaches the consistency of rich cream.

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. Marjoram + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Marjoram + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  4. Allspice + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Tripe
Forms the main body of the soup and becomes tender through long simmering.
Flour
Coats the tripe and thickens the broth, and also forms the dumplings.
Butter
Enriches the thickened broth and adds a rich, smooth mouthfeel.
Potatoes
Break down slightly during simmering, adding body to the broth.
Shortening
Adds fat to the dumplings, keeping them tender.

The step that matters

Thickening with butter and flour. Flour added directly to hot liquid can clump. Mixing it with butter first helps it disperse evenly, giving a smooth, creamy consistency rather than lumps.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, clove, allspice, marjoram, summer savory, basil, butter):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, clove, allspice, marjoram, summer savory, basil, butter. 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes