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Hotchpotch

A hearty stew of beef or mutton with carrots, turnips, leeks, parsley, and German greens.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Hotchpotch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the meat into nice-shaped pieces.

  2. Place the meat in a pot and cover with water.

  3. Boil the meat and skim off the fat.

Make the stew

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

  2. Adjust the quantity of vegetables to match the amount of meat.

  3. Cook until the soup is thick but not too thick.

  4. Serve all ingredients 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. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 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

Meat (beef or mutton)
Provides the main body and rich flavor of the stew as it simmers.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color to the broth as they soften.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and body as they cook into the broth.
Leeks
Contribute a mild onion-like aroma and soft texture to the stew.
German greens
Add leafy texture and fresh, slightly bitter flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat after boiling the meat. Fat that is not skimmed off rises and can make the broth greasy and cloudy. Removing it early leaves a cleaner-tasting soup.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, carrot, turnip, leek. 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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