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Pepper Pot

A hearty soup made with veal bones, tripe, potatoes, onions, herbs, and thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pepper Pot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tripe

  1. Boil the tripe in cold water for several hours the day before making the soup.

  2. Discard the liquid and cut the tripe into small pieces.

Make the soup

  1. In a soup pot, combine the tripe with 3 quarts of cold water and bring to a simmer.

  2. Strain the mixture and return the liquid to the pot.

  3. Add the minced onion, herbs, and diced potatoes to the pot.

  4. Bring to a boil, season with salt and pepper, and thicken with butter and flour.

  5. Add small dumplings and cook for 20 minutes before serving.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tripe
Provides the main body and chewy texture of the soup.
Potatoes
Break down partly as they cook, adding body and starch to the broth.
Flour
Starch that thickens the broth as it heats, giving it a fuller consistency.
Butter
Fat that is worked with flour to help it blend smoothly and add richness.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and sweetness as it cooks into the broth.

The step that matters

Thickening with butter and flour. Flour added to hot liquid without being blended with fat first can clump, leaving lumps and a raw starchy taste. Mixing it with butter and then whisking it into the simmering soup lets the starch disperse and thicken evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, potato, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, potato, butter, flour, 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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