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Pepper-pot

A hearty stew of tripe, calves' feet, onions, herbs, potatoes, and buttered dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Pepper-pot

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tripe and calves' feet

  1. Boil the tripe in enough water to cover it, adding 1 teaspoon of salt for every quart of water.

  2. Let it boil for 3 hours.

  3. Add the calves' feet to the pot with the tripe, along with enough water to cover them.

Add the vegetables and finish

  1. Add the sliced onions and chopped sweet herbs to the pot.

  2. Half an hour before serving, add the cut potatoes.

  3. When the potatoes are tender, stir in the butter rolled in flour and season with cayenne pepper.

  4. Make dumplings by mixing flour, butter, and a little water.

  5. Drop the dumplings into the soup.

  6. Serve when the vegetables are sufficiently soft.

  7. The calves' feet can be served with or without drawn butter.

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

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tripe
Becomes tender after long simmering, giving the soup its body and chewy texture.
Calves' feet
Release gelatin into the broth, adding body and a rich, silky mouthfeel.
Potatoes
Break down partly as they cook, thickening the broth and adding starchy body.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they simmer, adding depth to the broth.
Butter rolled in flour
Flour-coated butter thickens the soup and adds richness when stirred in.

The step that matters

Simmering the tripe for 3 hours. Tripe is tough and needs a long, gentle boil to become tender. Cutting it short leaves it rubbery, and a hard rolling boil can toughen proteins and make the broth cloudy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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