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Pepper Pot

A tripe stew with onions, potatoes, and herbs, finished with butter and egg balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Pepper Pot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tripe

  1. Place the tripe in a soup pot and cover it with cold water.

  2. Boil until the tripe is tender.

  3. Remove the tripe, skim the liquid, and stir.

  4. Cut the tripe into small pieces and return it to the liquid.

  5. If necessary, add boiling water to the pot.

Make the soup

  1. Season with marjoram, basil, thyme, onions, potatoes, salt, and pepper.

  2. Boil until the vegetables are almost tender.

  3. Add a piece of butter rolled in flour.

  4. Drop in the egg balls and boil for an additional 15 minutes.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Marjoram + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Basil + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  4. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 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

Tripe
Forms the main body of the soup and becomes tender through long boiling.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften in the broth.
Potatoes
Soften in the broth and thicken it slightly as their starch releases.
Butter
Adds richness and body to the broth.
Flour
Thickens the broth when rolled with butter and stirred in.
Egg balls
Add substance and a soft, tender texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Add a piece of butter rolled in flour. Flour dropped in as a lump can clump and stay raw in the broth. Rolling it with butter coats the particles so they disperse and thicken smoothly when heated.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (marjoram, basil, thyme, potato, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against marjoram, basil, thyme, potato, pepper, butter, flour. 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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