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Hotch-potch

A lamb or mutton chop stew with mixed vegetables and dried peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 427 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Hotch-potch

Ingredients

Directions

Start the stock

  1. Stew the lamb or mutton chops in the stock.

  2. Add the dried peas to the boiling stock and cook for 1 hour.

Finish the stew

  1. Add the meat and remaining vegetables.

  2. Cover and simmer for 2 to 3 hours until everything is tender.

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. Lettuce + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Lettuce + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Asparagus + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together274 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Turnip + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together320 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

Lamb or mutton chops
Long simmering breaks down connective tissue, giving the meat tenderness and a richer broth.
Stock
Liquid that carries flavour through the stew and keeps the meat and vegetables moist.
Mixed vegetables
Soften in the broth, adding sweetness, colour and texture to the stew.

The step that matters

Simmer gently with the lid on. A gentle simmer lets the meat's connective tissue break down slowly without toughening the fibres. Boiling hard can make the meat stringy and cloud the broth, while the lid helps keep the liquid from reducing too much.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, carrot, asparagus, peas, lettuce, turnip, spinach):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Endivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, carrot, asparagus, peas, lettuce, turnip, spinach. 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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