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An Excellent Hotch-potch

A stew of peas, lettuce, onion, and beef or ham bone, topped with browned mutton or lamb steaks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

An Excellent Hotch-potch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a pot, stew the peas, lettuce, and onion with a little water and the beef or ham bone.

  2. In a skillet, fry the seasoned mutton or lamb steaks until nicely browned.

Combine and serve

  1. Three quarters of an hour before serving, place the steaks in a stew-pan and add the stewed vegetables on top.

  2. Stew everything together and serve in a tureen.

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. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  4. Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

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

  5. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 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

Mutton or lamb steaks
Provide the main meat, with browning adding savoury flavour to the finished stew.
Beef or ham bone
Releases flavour and body into the stewing liquid as it simmers.
Peas
Add body and a soft, starchy texture to the stew.
Lettuce
Softens as it stews, adding moisture and a mild, green flavour.
Onion
Adds aroma and sweetness as it softens during stewing.

The step that matters

Frying the steaks until nicely browned. Browning through the Maillard reaction creates deeper, savoury flavour on the meat surface. Pale steaks added to the stew will taste flatter, so the surface needs real colour before they go in.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

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