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Hotch Potch

A mutton stew with onion, carrot, turnip, peas, cauliflower, lettuce, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Hotch Potch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat into neat pieces.

  2. Finely shred the lettuce, cutting the filaments across.

  3. Remove the stalk from the cauliflower and break it into small sprigs.

  4. Dice the turnip, carrot, and onion.

Make the stew

  1. Place the meat in a stewpan with the cold water and salt.

  2. Bring the mixture slowly to a boil. Skim the surface well.

  3. Let the meat simmer gently for 1 hour.

  4. Add the onion, carrot, and lettuce. Cook for another hour.

  5. Add the turnip, peas, and cauliflower. Cook slowly for 1 hour or until all vegetables are tender.

  6. Stir in the chopped parsley. Season to taste. Serve.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cauliflower + lettucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together151 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of mutton
Provides the meat and rich flavour that the broth is built on as it simmers.
Cauliflower
Adds body and mild sweetness as it softens over the long simmer.
Peas
Add sweetness and a soft, tender texture to the finished stew.
Lettuce
Wilts into the broth, adding moisture and a gentle vegetable flavour.

The step that matters

Skim the surface well after the water comes to a boil. Impurities and coagulated proteins rise as foam during heating. Removing them early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting rather than cloudy or greasy.

Swap the onion

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

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

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