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Winter Hotch Potch

A hearty stew of beef or mutton with carrots, turnips, leeks, parsley, German greens, pepper, sea salt, and optional rice or peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Winter Hotch Potch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the meat into handsome pieces.

  2. Boil the meat and skim the surface well.

Make the soup

  1. Add the sliced carrots, turnips, chopped leeks, parsley, and shredded German greens.

  2. If the greens are tender, add them only half an hour before the soup is done.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Optionally, add boiled rice or dry green peas for improvement.

Serve

  1. Serve the meat and soup together.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 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

Beef or mutton ribs
Meat releases flavour and gelatin into the broth as it simmers, giving body and richness.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour to the broth as they soften.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and soft texture as they cook through in the broth.
Leeks
Add a gentle onion-like aroma that builds the savoury base of the soup.
German greens
Add leafy texture and fresh, slightly bitter flavour that balances the rich broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the surface after boiling the meat. Boiling releases foam and fat made of coagulated proteins and impurities that cloud the broth and taste greasy. Removing them early keeps the soup clear and clean-flavoured.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, leek, pepper, rice):

  1. Celeryfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, leek, pepper, rice. 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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