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Hick Plum Pottage

A stew of crumbed French rolls, prunes, raisins, currants, spices, and wine, simmered in broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Hick Plum Pottage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pour ½ gallon of veal or beef broth over the crumbed rolls and prunes, then rub through a sieve.

  2. Mix in the raisins, currants, spices, lemon juice, red port, white wine, brandy, lemon peel, and sugar.

Cook and serve

  1. Simmer the mixture for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  2. Add cochineal for color and adjust the consistency; it should not be too thick.

  3. Serve hot in a soup tureen.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. White wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together620 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

French rolls
Crumbed bread thickens the liquid and gives the pottage its body.
Prunes
Soften during simmering and add sweetness and body to the pottage.
Raisins
Add sweetness and soft texture as they plump in the hot liquid.
Red port
Adds sweetness, depth and fruity flavor to the pottage.

The step that matters

Adjusting the consistency. The crumbed bread keeps thickening as the mixture simmers and cools, so it should be left looser than the final texture you want. Starch from bread thickens as it absorbs liquid, so thinning with more broth is easier than correcting a mixture that has become too stiff.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, currant, white wine, brandy, sugar):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, currant, white wine, brandy, sugar. 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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