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A Pepper-pot, to Be Served in a Tureen

A stew of mutton or fowl with pickled pork, vegetables, lobster or crab, rice, and a thickened broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

A Pepper-pot, to Be Served in a Tureen

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Bring 3 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot.

  2. Add chopped seasonal vegetables and the meat (mutton or fowl) along with pickled pork.

  3. Skim the surface when it first boils.

  4. Cook until the meat is tender.

  5. Add a small quantity of rice with the meat.

  6. If fat rises, skim it off.

Finish and serve

  1. Half an hour before serving, add the cleaned lobster or crab.

  2. Season with salt and Cayenne pepper.

  3. Mix ½ cup of water with a little flour to thicken the broth.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Lettuce + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Spinach + turniptop 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

Neck of mutton or fowl
Gives the broth its main meaty flavour and body as it cooks down.
Pickled pork
Adds salty, savoury depth to the broth.
Rice
Adds body and helps thicken the soup as its starch releases.
Flour
Thickens the broth when mixed with water and stirred in.
Lobster or crab
Adds sweet seafood flavour to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the flour thickener. Flour mixed with water must be blended smoothly before it goes into the hot broth, otherwise it forms lumps. Starch thickens the liquid as it heats, so it needs a short simmer to lose its raw taste and reach full thickness.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, spinach, carrot, turnip, celery, onion, mutton. 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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