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Pepper-pot

A stew of fowl, mutton chops, potatoes, onions, and spices, finished with Worcestershire or Harvey sauce.

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

  1. Get a medium-sized iron pot lined with enamel with a tightly fitting lid and a steam valve.

  2. Place the fowl, mutton chops, potatoes, and onions in the pot.

  3. Add enough water to cover the ingredients, along with salt, pepper, and spices.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil slowly or stew for the necessary time.

  2. Add a little Worcestershire or Harvey sauce 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. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Provides the main meat and rich flavour that the broth carries through the stew.
Mutton chops
Add meat and fat that enrich the broth as they cook slowly.
Potatoes
Soften during slow stewing and thicken the liquid slightly as their starch releases.
Onions
Break down during long cooking, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Keeping the pot at a slow boil or gentle stew. A hard rolling boil toughens meat proteins and can break up the potatoes, while slow simmering lets collagen soften and the meat become tender.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, pepper, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, pepper, sauce. 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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