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Hotch-potch

A hearty mutton stew with turnips, carrots, onions, lettuce, cauliflower, peas, and parsley, seasoned with coarse sea salt.

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 the broth

  1. Place half of the mutton or lamb in a soup pot with the water and a little salt.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim carefully, and let it boil for 1 hour.

Add the vegetables and meat

  1. Cut the remaining mutton or lamb into small chops and add to the pot along with the turnips and carrots.

  2. Chop the onions and half of the peas into neat square pieces and add them to the pot.

  3. Boil for another 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Chop the lettuce, divide the cauliflower into sprigs, and finely chop the parsley.

  2. Add the lettuce, cauliflower, remaining peas, and parsley to the pot.

  3. Boil for an additional 30 minutes, then season to taste and serve.

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. Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together286 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of mutton or lamb
Provides rich meat flavor and gelatin that gives the broth body as it simmers.
Turnips
Add sweetness and a tender, soft texture after long simmering.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and soften into the broth.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a bright color while giving body to the broth.
Cauliflower
Adds mild flavor and a tender texture to the stew.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth after it first boils. Skimming removes foam and coagulated proteins that would otherwise cloud the broth and taste scummy, keeping it clear and clean-flavored.

Swap the onion

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

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

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