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Pepper-pot

A hearty soup made with mutton, salt pork, honeycomb tripe, mixed vegetables, herbs, and thickened with flour, butter, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pepper-pot

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Add 3 quarts of water and 1 pint of mixed vegetables to a large pot.

  2. Add 1 pound each of mutton, salt pork, and honeycomb tripe, all cut up.

  3. Add 1 bay leaf, 1 clove, parsley, thyme, and sweet marjoram.

  4. Cover and cook for 3 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Let the soup cool.

  2. Remove the fat from the surface.

  3. Thicken the soup with flour, butter, and 1 egg yolk.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Serve very 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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Beans + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together500 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beans + ricetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,017 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides rich meaty flavor and body to the broth during long simmering.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that carries into the broth.
Honeycomb tripe
Adds a tender, chewy texture to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the broth by starch gelatinizing as it heats.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the soup, adding richness and smoothness.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with flour, butter, and egg yolk. Egg yolk can curdle or scramble if it boils, and flour clumps if added without being smoothed first. Adding the thickening off the heat or with some hot broth first helps keep the soup smooth.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, celery, carrot, onion, rice, lettuce, potato):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, celery, carrot, onion, rice, lettuce, potato. 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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