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Mock Turtle Soup, of Calf's Head

A hearty soup made from calf's head, ham, herbs, and Madeira or sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup, of Calf's Head

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the calf's head

  1. Scald the calf's head.

  2. Remove the brain.

  3. Tie the head in a cloth.

  4. Boil for 1 hour until the meat separates from the bone.

  5. Remove the head.

  6. Save the broth.

  7. Cut the meat into small square pieces.

  8. Soak the meat in cold water until cool.

  9. Place the meat in a stewpan.

  10. Cover with some of the broth.

  11. Boil until tender.

  12. Set aside.

Make the soup

  1. Melt some butter.

  2. Add the ham, fine herbs, parsley, and onion.

  3. Pour in about 1 pint of the broth.

  4. Let it simmer for 2 hours.

  5. Dredge in a small quantity of flour.

  6. Add the remaining broth and the Madeira or sherry.

  7. Let it stew quietly for 10 minutes.

  8. Strain through a medium sieve.

  9. Add the calf's head pieces.

  10. Season with cayenne pepper, salt, lemon juice, mace, and sugar.

  11. Add the prepared force-meat balls.

  12. Serve hot after 5 minutes.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Calf's head
Provides the meat and gelatine that give the soup its body and richness.
Flour
Thickens the broth so the soup becomes smooth and lightly body-rich.
Madeira or sherry
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth that rounds out the savoury broth.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour to the base of the soup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, heavy broth.

The step that matters

Boil the calf's head until tender. Boiling until the meat separates from the bone breaks down collagen into gelatine, giving the broth body. Undercooking leaves the meat tough and the soup thin.

Swap the mace

The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, parsley, onion, flour, sherry, pepper, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, parsley, onion, flour, sherry, pepper, 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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