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Simple Hotch Potch

A lamb chop stew with carrots, turnips, and peas simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Simple Hotch Potch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the fat from the lamb chops.

  2. In a stewpan, layer the chops at the bottom.

  3. Add a layer of cut carrots, turnips, and green peas.

  4. Repeat layering with more chops and vegetables until all are used.

  5. Pour enough water to cover the ingredients.

Stew

  1. Cover and let it stew gently for several hours until thick.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

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

  3. Turnip + peastop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,350 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lamb + peastop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together650 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Lamb + carrottop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together724 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb chops
Provide the main meat, whose fat and juices flavour the stewing liquid.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the stew as they soften during long cooking.
Turnips
Contribute mild, slightly sweet flavour and soft texture after slow stewing.
Green peas
Add bright colour and tender sweetness to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Stewing gently for several hours. Low, gentle heat lets the meat and vegetables become tender and lets collagen in the meat break down, which thickens the liquid. A rolling boil can toughen the meat and break up the vegetables.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, carrot, turnip):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, carrot, turnip. 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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