Name: Hodge-podge of Mutton
Ingredients: 1 neck or loin of mutton; 1 head of lettuce; 2 turnips; 2 carrots; 2 cucumbers; 4-5 onions; pepper; salt

Why it works: Lettuce and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hodge-podge of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the mutton into steaks and remove all the fat.
Place the steaks in a pitcher with lettuce, turnips, carrots, cucumbers, onions, pepper, and salt.

Cook

Do not add water and seal the pitcher tightly.
Set the pitcher in a pan of boiling water and boil for 4 hours, replenishing the water as needed.

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.

Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,409 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lettuce + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together526 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together226 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 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

Mutton: Long, gentle moist cooking breaks down the connective tissue, making the meat tender.
Lettuce: Releases moisture that, with the sealed pitcher, forms the cooking liquid.
Onions: Add aroma and savory depth to the broth as they soften.
Carrots: Add natural sweetness and body to the broth as they cook down.

The step that matters

Seal the pitcher without adding water. The sealed pitcher traps steam and the juices released by the vegetables and meat, so these become the only cooking liquid. A poor seal lets moisture escape, which can leave the stew dry and concentrated.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, lettuce, turnip, carrot, cucumber, pepper):

Beetrootfits better
Leekfits better
Endivefits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, lettuce, turnip, carrot, cucumber, pepper. 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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Hodge-podge of Mutton