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Hotch-Potch, Winter

A hearty stew of peas, mutton, beef, carrots, turnips, onions, and celery seed, simmered until tender.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the dried green peas in water overnight.

  2. Cut the mutton into neat cutlets and the beef into small square pieces.

Cook

  1. In a stew-pan, combine 4 quarts of water, sliced carrots, sliced turnips, sliced onions, bruised celery seed in muslin, soaked peas, and whole turnip and carrot.

  2. Add the beef and cook gently for 1 hour.

  3. Add the mutton and cook for another 1.5 hours or until the peas are soft.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the whole carrot and turnip, beat them to pulp, return to the pan, season with salt and pepper, and serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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

Dried green peas
Soaked and simmered until soft, they thicken the broth and give the stew its body.
Mutton
Slow cooking breaks down its connective tissue, adding rich flavour and tender meat to the stew.
Beef shin
Long gentle simmering softens its connective tissue, enriching the broth with savoury flavour.
Turnips
Beaten to a pulp, they dissolve into the broth, adding body, mild sweetness and earthy flavour.
Carrots
Cooked soft and mashed into the pan, they add natural sweetness and thicken the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the mutton after the beef. Beef shin needs an hour of gentle simmering to become tender, while mutton cutlets cook faster. Adding the mutton later keeps it from overcooking and turning dry and stringy while the peas finish softening.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, beef, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, 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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