Name: Hotch Potch
Ingredients: 3 quarts of mutton broth; 2 lbs of vegetables (equal quantities of carrot, turnip, and onions, cut into dice); 1 pint of green peas; 1 teaspoon finely chopped parsley; Some shredded lettuce

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

3 quarts of mutton broth
2 lbs of vegetables (equal quantities of carrot, turnip, and onions, cut into dice)
1 pint of green peas
1 teaspoon finely chopped parsley
Some shredded lettuce

Directions

Cook the vegetables

Put the carrot, turnip, and onion into half the broth and simmer until tender.
Cook the peas and lettuce in the remaining broth.

Combine and serve

Mix all ingredients together.
Sprinkle in the parsley just 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.

Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together526 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,842 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsley + lettucetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,483 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

Mutton broth: Forms the liquid base and carries the flavor through the whole dish.
Carrot: Softens as it simmers, adding body and a mild natural sweetness.
Turnip: Softens as it simmers, adding body and a mild, earthy sweetness.
Onions: Softens as it simmers, adding savory depth and a gentle sweetness.
Green peas: Add sweet flavor and bright color, and cook quickly to stay tender.

Swap the peas

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

Lentilsfits better
Chickpeafits better
Beansfits better
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, turnip, onion, parsley, lettuce. 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.