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Pepper Pot

A tripe and potato stew with herbs and dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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

Cook the tripe

  1. Boil the tripe in water until tender, about 15 hours.

  2. Save the cooking liquid.

  3. Cut the tripe into small pieces.

  4. Return the pieces to the kettle with the saved liquid.

Build the soup

  1. Add the cut potatoes and onions to the kettle.

  2. Stir in the sweet basil, summer savory, mixed pot herbs, salt, cayenne pepper, and butter.

Add dumplings and simmer

  1. Make a dough with flour and water, about ¼ inch thick.

  2. Form small dumplings the size of a gooseberry.

  3. Add the dumplings to the pot 5 hours after the other ingredients have been boiling.

  4. Let the pot simmer for an additional 4 hours to cook the dumplings.

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. Basil + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Basil + summer savorytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together22 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Summer savory + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together263 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Summer savory + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Tripe
Main protein that becomes tender through long simmering in liquid.
Potatoes
Starch that thickens the broth slightly and adds body to the soup.
Onions
Aromatic base that adds savory sweetness as it softens in the broth.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, rounding out the flavor of the broth.
Flour
Forms the dough for dumplings, providing structure and a chewy texture when cooked.

The step that matters

Adding the dumplings. Dumplings must sit in gently simmering liquid long enough to cook through. Adding them too early or letting the pot boil hard can break them apart or make them dense.

Swap the basil

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, summer savory, pepper, butter, flour. 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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