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WINTER HOTCH-POTCH (another way)
This dish may either be made of fresh beef or of a neck or back ribs of mutton, or of a mixture of both. Cut four pounds of meat into neat pieces. Boil and skim well, add carrots and turnips sliced, small leeks and parsley cut down, and some finely chopped cabbage; and, if tender, put in only half an hour before the soup is completed. Season with pepper and salt. The quantity of vegetables must be regulated by the quantity of meat, so that the soup may have consistency, but not be disagreeably thick. Serve the meat and soup together. Rice, or dry but tender green peas, may, if liked, be boiled in the soup.
A Scottish broth in the older sense: meat and vegetables cooked in one pot and served together. The original assumes you know how much water to use and how long a neck of mutton takes, so those are the gaps worth filling.
- The missing liquidNo water quantity is given. For 4 lb of meat, cover by about 3 inches — roughly 4 to 5 quarts — and expect to lose some to evaporation over the long simmer.
- Cuts of meatNeck and back ribs of mutton are fatty, bony cuts that reward slow cooking. Lamb neck or shoulder chops work; for beef use shin, chuck or short rib. Bone-in is the point, since the gelatine is what gives the broth body.
- Skim first, then buildThe instruction to "boil and skim well" comes before any vegetable goes in for a reason. Bring the meat to a bare simmer, take off the grey scum for the first fifteen minutes, and only then add anything else — otherwise the vegetables trap the scum and the broth stays cloudy.
- Timing the potThe meat wants 1½ to 2 hours at a slow simmer before it is tender. Carrots and turnips go in for the last 45 minutes, leeks and parsley for the last 20, and the cabbage — which is most likely what the recipe's "if tender, put in only half an hour before the soup is completed" refers to — half an hour out. Cabbage cooked the whole time turns sulphurous.
- "Cut down"An older Scots phrase meaning chopped small rather than left in lengths. Leeks and parsley should be fine enough to eat from a spoon.
- Dry green peasThese are split or whole dried peas, not garden peas. Soak overnight and add at the start with the meat; they need the full cooking time and will thicken the broth noticeably. Rice, by contrast, needs only the last 20 minutes.
- ConsistencyThe instruction to regulate vegetables by the meat is the operative one. Aim for a spoon that stands up briefly in the ladle but pours freely — roughly 2 lb of prepared root vegetables to 4 lb of meat is a reasonable starting ratio.
- Yield and servingServes six to eight generously. Lift the meat out, pull it from the bones into large pieces, and return it to the pot so each bowl gets broth, meat and vegetables together as directed.
Hotch-potch — from the Old French hochepot, a pot that is shaken or jumbled — is the standing name in Scotland for a broth in which meat and a mixed crowd of vegetables are cooked and served as one dish rather than strained apart. The summer version is the famous one, built on new peas, young carrots and lamb; this winter variant swaps in the keeping vegetables of the cold months, turnip, cabbage and leek, and leans on dried peas where fresh are not to be had. The recipe turns on a principle the book returns to often: that a broth's character comes from the balance of solid to liquid, and that the cook, not the recipe, must judge it. The seasonal pairing of soup and boiled meat in a single serving was ordinary household economy well into the nineteenth century, one fire and one pot producing the whole dinner.