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Hotch-potch

A lamb stew with peas, beans, carrots, turnips, cauliflower, lettuce, and spring onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and turnip 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 and simmer

  1. Trim excess fat from the lamb and place it in a clean saucepan with boiling water.

  2. Add 2 or 3 carrots cut into squares, turnips cut into squares, cauliflower, lettuce cut small, shredded onions, chopped parsley, and 1 pint of shelled and skinned peas and beans.

  3. Boil for 1.5 hours, then remove the meat and cut it into chops.

Finish and serve

  1. Set the chops aside and add another pint of young peas, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  2. Once the peas are cooked, return the chops to the pot, heat for a few minutes, and serve in a tureen.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lettuce + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together500 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  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

Lamb
Flavours the broth with fat and meat juices as it simmers.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a tender texture as they soften in the broth.
Beans
Add substance and a firm texture that holds during the long simmer.
Cauliflower
Softens in the broth, adding mild bulk and body.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and a soft bite after simmering.

The step that matters

Adding the second pint of peas. Peas turn dull and mushy with prolonged heat, so the fresh peas should be added after the meat is removed and cooked only until tender to keep their colour and texture.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, peas, lettuce, beans, carrot, turnip, 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.

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