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Mock Turtle Soup

A hearty soup of black beans, beef shank, onions, cloves, allspice, served with lemon slices and a hard‑boiled egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans and beef

  1. Boil the black beans and beef separately all day, adding water as needed.

  2. Once the beans are done, strain them through a colander while hot.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, boil the strained beans with the beef, onions, cloves, and allspice.

  2. Pour the mixture through a colander and mix with the strained beans while hot.

  3. Cook just long enough to warm the soup the next day.

Serve

  1. Serve with slices of lemon and hard-boiled egg.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  5. Beans + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together908 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Black beans
Provide the body and thick texture that give this soup its character.
Beef shank
Adds meaty flavour and richness to the broth during long simmering.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth to the soup base.
Whole cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice flavour to the soup.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes that round out the flavour.

The step that matters

Reheating the soup the next day. Heating gently and only long enough to warm the soup keeps the beans and meat tender and prevents the flavours from turning flat or overcooked. Prolonged boiling can break down the beans and toughen the meat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, beef, clove, allspice, lemon, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, beef, clove, allspice, lemon, 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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