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Pepper Pot

A hearty soup made with water, celery, turnips, carrots, lettuce, bones, bacon, salted pork, spinach, lobster or crab, cayenne pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 427 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Pepper Pot

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. In a large stewpan, combine 3 quarts of water with chopped celery, turnips, carrots, and lettuce.

  2. Add the bones of cold roast meat, bacon, and salted pork. Stew gently until the meat is tender, skimming off any foam when it first boils.

Finish and season

  1. Boil the spinach until tender, then rub it through a colander.

  2. Remove the bones from the soup and stir in the spinach and minced lobster or crab.

  3. Season with cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

  4. Optionally, boil suet dumplings or a fowl with the soup.

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. Lettuce + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together320 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Bacon
Adds smoky, savoury fat and flavour to the broth.
Salted pork
Contributes salty, savoury flavour and richness to the broth.
Spinach
Adds green colour and a soft, thickening body when rubbed through a colander.
Lobster or crab meat
Adds delicate sweet seafood flavour and tender pieces to the soup.

The step that matters

Skimming foam when the broth first boils. Foam carries impurities and fat from the meat and bones. Skimming it early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting as it simmers.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, carrot, lettuce, meat, pork, spinach, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Celerythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, carrot, lettuce, meat, pork, spinach, pepper. 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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