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Hodge Podge

A stew of mutton with carrots, turnips, onions, cabbage, peas, and grated carrot.

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

Prepare

  1. Cut the mutton into small pieces and place in a stew pan.

  2. Add cold water, salt, sugar, and pepper.

Make the stew

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

  2. Wash and chop the carrot, turnips, onions, and cabbage lettuces, then add to the pot.

  3. Boil until the vegetables are done.

  4. Add green peas and grated carrot for improvement.

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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and flavourful during long simmering.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and body to the broth as they soften.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and a firm texture that holds up to long cooking.
Green peas
Add fresh sweetness and bright colour near the end of cooking.

The step that matters

Skimming while the stew simmers. Skimming removes foam and fat that rise during simmering, keeping the broth clear and less greasy. Skimming as needed during the first hour helps the stock taste clean.

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.

More mutton stew recipes

with Rice 14Irish 9with Carrots 5with Dumplings 4with Lettuce and Peas 4with Turnips 3 See all 234 →

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