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Hotch-Potch

A mutton stew with carrots, turnips, peas, onion, celery, cabbage, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery 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. Cut the mutton into pieces and place it in a soup pot with water.

Stew

  1. Add sliced carrots, turnips, dried peas, shredded onion, celery or celery seed, salt, and pepper.

  2. Stew for three hours.

  3. Add shredded cabbage and stew for an additional half hour.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides rich meaty flavour and body to the broth as it simmers.
Dried green peas
Soften during long stewing, thickening the broth and adding body.
Turnips
Hold their shape through long stewing while adding mild sweetness to the broth.
Carrots
Release natural sugars during stewing, adding sweetness and colour to the broth.
Cabbage
Cooks quickly at the end, adding texture and mild sweetness without overcooking.

The step that matters

Adding the cabbage at the end. Cabbage added at the start would overcook during the three-hour stew, turning soft and losing texture. Adding it for the final half hour keeps it tender but still with some bite.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, pepper, cabbage):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, pepper, cabbage. 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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