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Turtle Soup

A stew of veal, turtle meat, herbs, carrots, onions, ham, spices, and stock, finished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the veal and place it in a large pot.

  2. Scald the turtle head, callipè, and soft callipash, removing any skin.

  3. Boil these parts until tender, then cut into squares and set aside for the soup.

Make the soup

  1. Add the turtle meat, herbs, carrots, onions, ham, peppercorns, salt, spices, and bay leaves.

  2. Stew until it takes on the color of espagnole.

  3. Add the fins and hearts 30 minutes before finishing, along with half water and half beef stock.

  4. Skim the surface and add a bunch of parsley, boiling gently like consommé.

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 + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Carrot + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main body and rich gelatin that gives the soup its substance.
Lean ham
Adds savory, salty depth to the stock as it stews.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and aromatic flavour to the stewed base.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and savory depth as they cook down into the base.
Beef stock
Adds liquid and meaty flavour to the soup along with the water.

The step that matters

Stew until it takes on the color of espagnole. Browning the meat and vegetables develops deep color and flavour through the Maillard reaction. Stopping too early leaves the soup pale and flat, while overcooking can dull its clarity.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, meat, carrot, onion, ham, beef):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, meat, carrot, onion, ham, beef. 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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