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Pepper Pot

A hearty stew of beef, crab or lobster, bacon, spinach, asparagus, and dumplings, flavored with herbs, cayenne, salt, pepper, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and asparagus match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 274 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Pepper Pot

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place 4 pounds of gravy beef in 6 quarts of water with the bouquet of savory herbs.

  2. Simmer until all goodness is extracted, skimming off fat as needed.

  3. Let it cool, then remove the fat.

Finish the pot

  1. Heat the beef broth in a stewpan.

  2. Add the flesh of 2 crabs or lobsters, chopped spinach, and ½ pound of cold bacon cut into small pieces.

  3. Incorporate a few small dumplings made from flour, beef suet, egg yolk, and a little water.

  4. Add 1 pound of asparagus tops and season with cayenne, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  5. Stew for about 30 minutes, stirring constantly.

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. Spinach + asparagustop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together274 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Spinach + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Asparagus + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together704 recipes

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

  5. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Gravy beef
Releases gelatin and flavor into the water, giving the broth its body and savoury depth.
Beef suet
Adds richness and fat to the dumplings, keeping them tender rather than dry.
Bacon
Renders fat and smoky, salty flavor into the broth as it cooks.
Asparagus tops
Add tender green vegetable texture and a fresh, slightly grassy flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring during the 30-minute stew. Constant stirring keeps the spinach, asparagus and dumplings from sticking and scorching on the base of the pot, and distributes heat so the dumplings cook through evenly.

“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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