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Simple Hotch Potch

A lamb and vegetable stew simmered slowly 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 and layer

  1. Trim the fat from the lamb chops.

  2. Layer the chops in a stew pan.

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

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

Stew

  1. Pour in enough water to cover the ingredients.

  2. 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, which releases savory flavor into the stewing liquid as it cooks.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body, softening as they stew in the liquid.
Turnips
Contribute mild, slightly peppery flavor and starch that helps thicken the stew.
Green peas
Add color and a tender, sweet bite to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Stew gently for several hours. Gentle, low heat lets the tough meat break down and become tender while the vegetables soften without falling apart. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and make the stew cloudy, so keep the liquid at a slow simmer.

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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