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Spanish, or Olla Podrida

A hearty Spanish stew of pork, beef, mutton, veal, ham, peas, cabbage, and spices simmered slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Spanish, or Olla Podrida

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cook the salt pork in a saucepan over medium heat until partially fried.

  2. Add the beef, mutton, veal, and ham.

  3. Cover with cold water.

  4. Skim off any scum that forms.

Simmer the pot

  1. Add the soaked peas, cabbage, pimento, carrot, turnip, leeks, celery, parsley, thyme, cloves, onions, garlic, peppercorns, and mace.

  2. Fill with water to just cover the ingredients.

  3. Simmer for about 5 hours.

  4. If the water reduces too much, add a little more.

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. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Cabbage + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,505 recipes

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

  3. Peas + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 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

Salt pork
Renders fat that flavours the broth and browns the surface of the pot.
Dry peas
Thicken the broth as they soften and add body during the long simmer.
Beef
Releases gelatin and savoury flavour into the broth during slow simmering.
Cabbage
Adds sweetness and bulk as it cooks down into the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off any scum that forms. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities rising from the meat. Removing it early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting over the long simmer.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, beef, mutton, veal, ham, peas, carrot):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, beef, mutton, veal, ham, peas, carrot. 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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