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Hodge Podge

A hearty stew of mutton, carrots, turnips, onions, cabbage, peas, and grated carrot, simmered in water with salt, sugar, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 526 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Hodge Podge

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. In a stew pan, combine the mutton, cold water, salt, sugar, and pepper.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour, skimming as needed.

  3. Add the chopped carrot, turnips, onions, and cabbage lettuces to the pot.

  4. Continue to boil until the vegetables are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the green peas and grated carrot 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. Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

  5. 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 scrag
Provides the meat and rich flavour that the broth is built on.
Turnips
Hold their shape in the stew and add a mild, slightly sweet bitterness.
Onions
Add savoury depth and sweetness as they soften in the broth.
Cabbage lettuces
Add bulk and gentle moisture as they wilt into the stew.

The step that matters

Skimming during the simmer. Skimming removes foam and loose fat that rise during simmering, keeping the broth clearer and less greasy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, sugar, pepper, carrot, turnip, cabbage, lettuce. 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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