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Hotch-potch

A lamb chop and vegetable stew simmered slowly until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Hotch-potch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the skin and fat from the lamb chops and cut the smaller ends into pieces.

Layer and stew

  1. In a stewpan, layer the whole lamb chops at the bottom.

  2. Add a layer of chopped vegetables: onions, celery, lettuce, carrots, turnips, and green peas.

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

  4. Cover the ingredients with water and stew gently for several hours until tender and the soup thickens.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Lettuce + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 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. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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, whose collagen and fat enrich the broth as it stews.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and body as they soften during the long stew.
Carrots
Add sweetness and color while softening into the broth.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a fresh, bright flavor to the stew.

The step that matters

Stewing gently for several hours. Gentle, low heat lets the collagen in the lamb break down slowly into gelatin, making the meat tender and the soup thicken. A hard boil can toughen the meat and cloud the broth.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, onion, celery, lettuce, carrot, turnip):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, onion, celery, lettuce, 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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