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Soup

Hotch Potch

A clear or thick soup made from duck or goose gizzards and necks, seasoned with herbs, lemon, wine, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Hotch Potch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the giblets

  1. After roasting ducks or geese, divide the gizzards and necks into small pieces and clean them.

  2. Put the gizzards and necks in a stewpan with enough cold water to cover them.

  3. Skim the surface as it simmers, then add a bundle of fine herbs, an onion, parsley, and black peppercorns in a muslin bag.

  4. Simmer until the gizzards are tender, about 1 to 1.5 hours.

Make the soup

  1. For a clear soup, remove the pieces and use the broth in a rich clear soup.

  2. For a thick soup, melt 2 oz of butter and stir in enough flour to make a paste.

  3. Dilute the paste with the giblet broth and any weak broth available, then simmer for 30 minutes.

  4. Season with lemon juice, white wine, and cayenne, then add the giblets to heat through.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, with lemon and cayenne on the side if preferred.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Peas + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,005 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Gizzards and necks
Provide the main meaty flavour and body that the broth is built on.
Butter
Enriches the thick soup and carries flavour through the roux-style paste.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked into a paste and diluted with broth.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the finished soup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that sharpens and balances the rich broth.

The step that matters

Dilute the paste with the broth. Adding the flour paste to hot liquid gradually, while stirring, prevents lumps and gives a smooth, evenly thickened soup.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, lemon, white wine, onion, parsley):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, lemon, white wine, onion, parsley. 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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