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Mock Turtle Soup

A hearty beef soup with onion, carrot, bay leaf, vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine beef, onion, water, salt, and pepper.

  2. Add carrot and bay leaf; bring to a boil.

  3. Simmer for 1-2 hours until beef is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove beef, shred it, and return to the pot.

  2. Stir in vinegar and Worcestershire sauce 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. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Beef + carrottop 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

Beef
Provides the main protein and rich meaty flavour as it simmers.
Onion
Adds savoury, sweet depth to the broth as it cooks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the finished soup.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury, tangy depth to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Simmer until the beef is tender. Beef is tough raw and needs long, gentle simmering so its connective tissue breaks down. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and cloud the broth, so keep it at a slow simmer.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, pepper, vinegar, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, pepper, vinegar, sauce. 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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