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Pepper-pot

A hearty stew of mutton, salt pork, honeycomb tripe, mixed vegetables, and spices, 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

Prepare the pot

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

  2. Include beans, peas, celery, carrots, onions, rice, lettuce, and potatoes in equal parts.

  3. Add 1 pound each of mutton, salt pork, and honeycomb tripe that has been cut up and fried in butter.

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

Cook and finish

  1. Cover and cook for 3 hours.

  2. Set aside to cool, then remove the fat.

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

  4. Season with salt and pepper, and 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 flavour and body to the broth as it simmers.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savoury depth that carries flavour through the soup.
Honeycomb tripe
Adds chewy texture after frying, which helps it hold shape in the broth.
Egg yolk
Thickens the broth and gives it a smoother, richer mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the broth by swelling with liquid as it heats.

The step that matters

Thicken the broth. Flour needs to be cooked in the hot liquid to swell and thicken it smoothly. Egg yolk can curdle or scramble if it is added to boiling liquid, so it should be tempered and added gently.

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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