Name: Hotch-potch, Scotch
Ingredients: 3 quarts of good mutton broth; 1 quart of young vegetables (carrots, turnips, onions, finely-shredded lettuce, sprigs of cauliflower, chopped parsley); 1 pint of freshly-shelled green peas; 3 pounds of mutton chops (or lamb, trimmed of excess fat); pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Hotch-potch, Scotch

Ingredients

3 quarts of good mutton broth
1 quart of young vegetables (carrots, turnips, onions, finely-shredded lettuce, sprigs of cauliflower, chopped parsley)
1 pint of freshly-shelled green peas
3 pounds of mutton chops (or lamb, trimmed of excess fat)
pepper to taste
coarse sea salt to taste

Directions

Prepare the broth

Bring the mutton broth to a boil in a deep stewpan.

Cook the stew

Add the sliced young vegetables and boil until tender.
Add the mutton chops and boil until the meat is tender.
Stir in the green peas and season with pepper and salt.
Once the peas are tender, serve in a deep dish.

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.

Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together526 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together286 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lettuce + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together151 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton broth: Provides the liquid base and savoury flavour for the whole stew.
Mutton chops: Supply the meat, whose connective tissue softens and enriches the broth during long boiling.
Young vegetables: Add sweetness, texture and freshness as they soften in the broth.
Green peas: Add sweetness and a bright colour, cooking quickly once added.

The step that matters

Boil the mutton chops until tender. Mutton needs sustained simmering so its connective tissue breaks down; stopping early leaves the meat tough and chewy. Boiling hard can also toughen the meat, so a steady simmer gives the best result.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, carrot, turnip, lettuce, cauliflower, parsley, peas):

Leekfits better
Beetrootfits better
Endivefits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, turnip, lettuce, cauliflower, parsley, peas. 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.

Mutton Broth292 recipes

Green Peas229 recipes

Carrot Soup134 recipes

Haricot Mutton59 recipes

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Hotch-potch, Scotch