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Olla Podrida, or Spanish National Soup

A hearty Spanish soup made with beef, hen, ham, partridges, sausages, vegetables, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Olla Podrida, or Spanish National Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pot

  1. Place slices of raw ham at the bottom of a stockpot.

  2. Add sliced gravy beef and the roasted hen.

  3. Garnish with cloves and mace.

  4. Moisten the stockpot with 1 quart of water.

  5. Set the stockpot on the fire.

Braise the meats

  1. Reduce the broth to a glaze.

  2. Fill the stockpot with water as soon as it boils.

  3. Skim the broth.

  4. Let the broth boil gently by the side of the stove.

  5. After 2 hours, add the large fowl, partridges, pork sausages, and savaloys.

  6. Monitor the braising to prevent overcooking.

  7. Remove the meat when done.

Cut and serve

  1. Cool the meat.

  2. Cut the fowl and partridges into small pieces.

  3. Cut the sausages and savaloys into small round balls.

  4. In a soup pot, combine all meats with carrots, turnips, celery, and leeks boiled in consomme with a small lump of sugar.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

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

  3. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Clove + turniptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Gravy beef
Slowly braised in the broth, it becomes tender and gives the pot its meaty flavour.
Raw ham
Lines the base of the pot and adds savoury, salty depth to the broth.
Roasted hen
Adds rich meat flavour and body to the broth as it simmers.
Large fowl
Contributes meat and flavour to the broth during the long gentle boil.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour to the finished dish.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and a firm texture that holds up to simmering.

The step that matters

Let the broth boil gently. A hard boil makes the meat tough and cloudy, while a gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and the broth clear. Skimming removes impurities that would otherwise cloud it.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, ham, clove, pork, carrot, olive, turnip):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, clove, pork, carrot, olive, 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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