Name: Simple Hotch Potch
Ingredients: lamb chops; carrots; turnips; green peas; water

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Simple Hotch Potch

Ingredients

Directions

Trim the fat from the lamb chops.
Layer the chops in a stew pan.
Add a layer of cut carrots, turnips, and green peas on top.
Repeat layering with chops and vegetables until all are used.
Pour enough water to cover the ingredients.
Stew gently for several hours until thick.

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.

Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,994 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Turnip + peastop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,350 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lamb + peastop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together650 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Lamb + carrottop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together724 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).