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Calf's Head, or Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made from calf's head, butter, flour, spices, white wine, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 957 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Calf's Head, or Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Boil the calf's head in water until tender, then cut the meat into 2-inch squares.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, melt the butter and mix in the flour to create a roux, browning it well.

  2. Gradually stir in the broth from boiling the head and add the meat squares.

  3. Season with mace, cloves, sweet marjoram, pepper, and salt.

  4. Let it simmer for 1 to 2 hours.

  5. Add the white wine.

  6. Stir in lemon juice 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.

  1. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  2. Clove + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Provides the meat and gelatin that give the soup its body and rich texture.
Butter
Carries flavor and, with the flour, forms the roux that thickens the soup.
Flour
Thickens the broth as part of the roux, giving the soup body.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the finished soup.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity that balances the richness of the soup.

The step that matters

Browning the roux. Cooking the flour and butter until well browned develops nutty, deep flavor and color. Stopping early leaves a pale, floury taste, while scorching gives bitterness.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, clove, marjoram, pepper, white wine, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, clove, marjoram, pepper, white wine, lemon. 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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