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Hodge Podge

A hearty stew of lean beef, carrot, turnip, onion, peas, and bay leaf simmered in a brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Hodge Podge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef into equal-sized dice.

  2. Scrape and wash the carrot, then cut it into equal-sized dice.

  3. Peel and chop the onion and turnip into equal-sized dice.

Make the gravy and cook

  1. In a pan, heat the dripping over medium heat until it releases a blue vapor.

  2. Add the flour and stir until it turns a nice brown color.

  3. Pour in the water and bring to a boil.

  4. Add the meat, vegetables, bay leaf, cayenne, pepper, and salt to taste.

  5. Simmer gently for 45 minutes.

Serve

  1. Remove the bay leaf, arrange the meat and vegetables on a dish, sprinkle with chopped parsley, and pour the gravy around before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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

Lean beef
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender as it simmers slowly in the liquid.
Flour
Browned in the fat, it thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy.
Dripping
Fat that carries flavor and helps brown the flour for the gravy.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the stew as it softens.
Turnip
Adds a mild, earthy flavor and soft texture after simmering.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma as it cooks down into the broth.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in the fat. Flour must cook until it turns a nice brown color before the water goes in. Stirring over medium heat keeps it from scorching while developing a richer, nutty flavor and color in the gravy.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, onion, flour, pepper, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, onion, flour, pepper, parsley. 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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