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Hot Pot or Hotch Potch

A stew of beef, pork sausage, onions, cucumbers, carrots, asparagus, peas, tomatoes, rice, peppers, and cabbage simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Hot Pot or Hotch Potch

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Combine and season

  1. In a large earthen crock, combine the beef, pork sausage, onions, cucumbers, carrots, asparagus, green peas, tomatoes, rice, green peppers, and cabbage.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then add the cold water.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the crock and place it in the oven at 6 a.m.

  2. It will be ready for dinner at 12 o'clock.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Asparagus + peastop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together808 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + asparagustop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together203 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + peastop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

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

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef trimmings
Provides the main meat flavor and body as the stew cooks slowly.
Pork sausage meat
Adds seasoned fat that enriches the broth and flavors the vegetables.
Rice
Thickens the stew slightly as its starch releases during long cooking.
Tomatoes
Contribute acidity and body, helping build the stew's savory, rounded flavor.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a tender texture to the stew.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, meat, onion, carrot, asparagus, peas):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, meat, onion, carrot, asparagus, 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.

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