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Another Hotch Potch

A hearty mutton and vegetable soup with peas and greens.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Another Hotch Potch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine 3 quarts of water, mutton, diced carrots, diced turnips, and salt in a large pot.

  2. Boil gently for 1 hour.

Add the vegetables and peas

  1. Add chopped cauliflower, lettuce, parsley, and onions.

  2. Continue boiling.

  3. Boil 1 quart of full-grown peas in a separate saucepan until tender. Press the peas through a sieve to make puree.

  4. Add the pea puree to the soup.

  5. Remove the mutton pieces.

  6. Add 3 pints of young peas and mutton chops.

  7. Boil until cooked through.

  8. If the soup is too thick, stir in boiling water 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. 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

Mutton
Gives the broth its rich, savoury meat flavour.
Full-grown peas
Pureed into the soup, they thicken it and add body.
Carrots
Add sweetness and colour to the broth.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and body to the broth.

Swap the onion

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

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

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