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Mock Turtle Soup

Mock Turtle Soup is a broth made from calf head, tomatoes, and meatballs, seasoned with allspice, lemon, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the head

  1. Boil the calf's head in cold water for 4 hours.

  2. Let it cool in the broth.

  3. Remove the head, cut the flesh from the bones, and set aside the cheek and tongue.

  4. Chop the remaining meat finely and divide it in half.

  5. Return one half to the broth with the bones and heat slowly.

Make the forcemeat balls

  1. Make forcemeat with the other half, brain, and beaten egg; season well and roll into balls.

  2. Bake the balls in a 400°F (200°C) oven until firm, then cool.

  3. Strain the tomatoes and set aside.

Finish the soup

  1. After 1 hour of cooking, strain out bones and meat from the soup.

  2. In a frying pan, make a roux with butter and flour, stirring until smooth and brown.

  3. Thin the roux with a few spoonfuls of soup, then add to the soup along with spices, pepper, and salt.

  4. Cook for a few minutes, then add the meat dice and lemon.

  5. Ten minutes later, gently drop in the meatballs and do not let the soup boil.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Browned flour
Thickens the soup and adds a toasted, nutty color and flavor.
Butter
Forms the roux with the flour, carrying flavor and helping it thicken smoothly.
Raw egg
Binds the forcemeat so the balls hold their shape while baking.
Brown sherry
Adds sweetness and a rich, aromatic depth to the finished soup.
Tomatoes
Contribute acidity and color to the soup's flavor base.

The step that matters

Do not let the soup boil after adding the meatballs. Boiling can toughen and break the delicate forcemeat balls and cloud the soup, so they should be heated gently just until cooked through.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, lemon, sherry, pepper, allspice, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, lemon, sherry, pepper, allspice, egg. 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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