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Hotch Potch

A hearty stew of pearl barley, cabbage, carrots, turnip, onions, and herbs simmered in water.

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. Rinse the pearl barley and place it in a pot with the cold water.

  2. Scrape or grate one carrot and set it aside in a little water.

  3. Chop the remaining vegetables finely.

Cook

  1. Once the water boils, add the chopped vegetables, butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Ensure the mixture is thick with vegetables.

  3. Boil 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 stew and gives it a chewy, substantial body as it simmers.
Cabbage
Adds bulk, and its sweetness develops as it cooks slowly.
Onions
As they soften, they add sweetness and a savoury base to the stew.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and colour to the stew.
Turnip
Adds bulk and a mild flavour that mellows during long simmering.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the stew richness.

The step that matters

Simmer the barley for the full 2 hours. Barley needs a long, steady simmer for its starch to soften and release into the liquid, which is what thickens the stew. Stopping early leaves the grains firm and the broth thin.

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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