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Hotch Potch

A mutton stew with turnip, carrot, peas, lettuce, onion, cauliflower, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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. Place the mutton in a saucepan with the water and salt, and skim it carefully as soon as it boils.

  2. Wash and finely chop the vegetables, breaking the cauliflower into sprigs.

Cook the stew

  1. Add all the vegetables except the cauliflower and peas to the boiling water, and cook gently for 2 hours.

  2. Add pepper, sugar, peas, and cauliflower, and cook for an additional 30 minutes.

  3. Remove the mutton and serve separately if desired.

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 + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together151 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Peas + cauliflowertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of mutton
Provides the meat and rich flavour that the broth absorbs during long, gentle simmering.
Turnip
Adds body and a slightly sharp, earthy sweetness as it softens in the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour, and soften into the stew during the long cooking.
Green peas
Add bright sweetness and a tender texture when cooked briefly at the end.
Cauliflower
Adds mild flavour and a tender texture, cooked briefly so it keeps its shape.
Onions
Add savoury depth and sweetness to the broth as they soften.

The step that matters

Skimming the mutton as it boils. Skimming removes the foam of coagulated proteins and impurities that rise as the meat first heats. Removing it early keeps the broth clear and less greasy.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

More mutton stew recipes

with Rice 14Irish 9with Carrots 5with Dumplings 4with Lettuce and Peas 4with Turnips 3 See all 234 →

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