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Hotch-potch

A mutton stew with peas, carrots, turnips, onions, lettuce, cauliflower, barley or rice, seasoned with white pepper and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 526 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Hotch-potch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate two young carrots coarsely.

  2. Slice three carrots, three turnips, and three onions.

  3. Shred one lettuce and a bunch of parsley, about a quart in total.

  4. Set aside half the shelled green peas in a basin.

Make the broth

  1. In a clean stewpan, heat three pints of mutton stock or broth.

  2. Add all the vegetables except the peas to the stewpan.

  3. Add cutlets prepared as for Irish stew to the stewpan.

  4. Bring the contents to a slow boil.

  5. Skim off any foam.

  6. Add the blanched barley or rice.

  7. Simmer until the meat is tender.

  8. Skim again.

  9. Season with white pepper and pounded sugar.

Finish and serve

  1. Boil the remaining peas separately.

  2. Add the boiled peas just before serving.

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. Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together286 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lettuce + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together151 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Turnip + barleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the meat and rich flavour that the broth is built around.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a fresh, tender texture at the end of cooking.
Barley or rice
Thickens the broth slightly and gives it body as it cooks.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour to the stew.
Onions
Build savoury depth as they soften in the stock.

The step that matters

Skim off any foam. Foam from the meat rises as the liquid comes to a boil and can make the broth cloudy and off-tasting if left in. Skimming early and again during simmering keeps the broth clear.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, peas, carrot, turnip, lettuce, cauliflower, barley):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, peas, carrot, turnip, lettuce, cauliflower, barley. 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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