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Scotch Hotch-potch

A hearty stew of beef, mutton, peas, potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, and onions simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scotch Hotch-potch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Chop the beef and mutton finely.

  2. Combine the meat and water in a stew-pan.

  3. Simmer gently until the meat is tender.

Add the vegetables and finish

  1. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  2. Add the peas, potatoes, carrots, cauliflowers, and onions.

  3. Dredge the mixture with flour. Stir well.

  4. Cook until the potatoes are done.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Peas + cauliflowertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + oniontop 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

Beef
Becomes tender through slow simmering, adding savoury meat flavour to the broth.
Mutton
Becomes tender through slow simmering, adding rich meat flavour to the broth.
Potatoes
Break down partly as they cook, thickening the stew and adding body.
Flour
Dredged over the mixture, it thickens the liquid as it cooks.

The step that matters

Dredging with flour. Flour added to a simmering liquid can clump if not stirred in well. Stirring thoroughly spreads the starch evenly so the stew thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, mutton, pepper, peas, potato, carrot, onion):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mutton, pepper, peas, potato, carrot, onion. 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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