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Mock Turtle Soup

A thickened soup made with ham, onions, garlic, herbs, and butter, served diluted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the roux

  1. Heat the butter in a large kettle until soft, then mix in the flour until combined.

  2. Cook the mixture over low heat until it turns a nice brown color.

Make the soup

  1. Combine the soup stock, ham, spices, and salt in another kettle.

  2. Cook the mixture slowly for 1 hour.

  3. Add the chopped vegetables and cook for an additional 10 minutes.

  4. Stir in the flour and butter mixture, cooking until the soup thickens to the consistency of light ketchup.

Can and process

  1. Fill the soup into cans, stirring well while filling.

  2. Cap the cans and exhaust them for 3 minutes.

  3. Process the cans at 250°F (120°C) for 45 minutes.

  4. Dilute the soup by half when 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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  5. Coriander + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Wheat flour
Thickens the soup with the browned butter, giving it body when cooked into a roux.
Butter
Carries flavor and forms the roux with flour, adding richness to the soup.
Ham
Adds savory, meaty flavor to the stock.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and depth as they cook into the soup base.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the rich, thickened soup.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour and butter to a brown roux. Heating flour in fat develops color and nutty flavor, but scorching turns it bitter. Low, steady heat and stirring brown it evenly, and the roux then thickens the soup without lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, garlic, thyme, parsley, coriander, lemon, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, garlic, thyme, parsley, coriander, lemon, butter. 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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