Skip to main content
Main

Mock Turtle Soup

A large soup made from beef broth, gelatin, mushroom ketchup, spices, and vegetables, canned in 2‑pound cans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Boil 25 gallons of beef soup liquor until reduced to 25 gallons.

  2. In a 100-gallon kettle, combine the reduced soup, jelly, mushroom ketchup, salt, white pepper, mace, nutmeg, cloves, sugar, and flour batter.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil while stirring well.

  4. Prepare the vegetable liquor by boiling diced carrots and onions with marjoram, tarragon, thyme, summer savory, bay leaves, and celery seed in water until reduced by half.

  5. Add the vegetable liquor to the soup mixture and stir well.

Can and process

  1. In two-pound cans, place 6 ounces of diced carrots and 2 ounces of minced onions, then fill with the soup to weigh 2 pounds 1 ounce.

  2. Wipe the cans.

  3. Cap the cans with vents open.

  4. Process the cans in a retort at 3 pounds pressure for 1.5 hours.

  5. After processing, slowly release pressure and remove the cans from the retort.

  6. Seal the vents and return the cans to the retort.

  7. Boil the cans at 8 pounds pressure for 1 hour and 45 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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the soup into a body-rich batter-based texture as it heats.
Jelly
Adds body and a silky texture through gelatin from the bones.
Beef soup liquor
Forms the savory base that carries all the other flavors.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness to balance the spices and savory notes.

The step that matters

Cap the cans with vents open, then seal before the second processing. Venting lets air and steam escape during the first retort run so the can does not trap pressure unevenly; sealing only afterward keeps the contents sterile and the seam sound for the higher-pressure boil.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, gelatin, mushroom, mace, nutmeg, clove, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, gelatin, mushroom, mace, nutmeg, clove, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipes