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Hotch-potch

A mutton stew with turnip, carrot, cauliflower, peas, broad beans, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 526 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Hotch-potch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the onions, dice the carrot and turnip, break the cauliflower into small florets, and shell and skin the beans.

Make the hotch potch

  1. Place the mutton in cold water and bring to a boil, skimming carefully.

  2. Add all the vegetables, chopped lettuce, half of the peas, and 1 teaspoon of salt to the pot.

  3. Boil for 1.5 hours, then add the remaining peas, chopped parsley, and additional seasoning.

Serve

  1. Serve the meat separately with parsley sauce or cut into neat chops and serve in 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. Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together286 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lettuce + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together500 recipes

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

  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

Shoulder of mutton
Provides the meat and rich flavour that the broth is built on.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a soft, tender texture to the finished soup.
Broad beans
Add body and a mild, earthy sweetness to the soup.
Lettuce
Softens during long simmering and adds gentle body to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the mutton at the start. Skimming the foam that rises as the water heats removes impurities and proteins, keeping the broth clear and clean-tasting rather than cloudy or scummy.

Swap the onion

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

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

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