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Soup

Hotch-potch

A hearty barley soup with cabbage, carrots, onions, turnip, herbs, butter, and seasonings, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Hotch-potch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large pot, bring the water to a boil and add the pearl barley.

  2. Chop all the vegetables except for one carrot, which you should scrape and set aside in a little water.

Cook the soup

  1. Once the water is boiling, add the chopped vegetables, butter, and seasoning.

  2. Ensure there are enough vegetables to thicken the soup.

  3. Boil the soup for 2 hours, then add the scraped carrot and boil for an additional 30 minutes.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cabbage + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Barley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 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

Pearl barley
Its starch thickens the broth and it stays chewy during the long simmer.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a rounder, smoother mouthfeel to the soup.
Onions
Soften and sweeten during the long simmer, building the soup's savory base.
Turnip
Releases starch as it cooks, helping to thicken the soup and add body.

The step that matters

Adding the scraped carrot after 2 hours. Carrot added at the start of a long simmer would overcook and turn soft and mushy. Adding it for the final 30 minutes keeps it tender but still with some texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, cabbage, carrot, turnip, parsley, butter, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, cabbage, carrot, turnip, parsley, butter, pepper. 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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