Skip to main content
Main

To Drefs a Mock Turtle

A rich stew made from calf head, veal gravy, sweetbreads, morels, truffles, artichokes, anchovy, spices, Madeira wine, and mushrooms.

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

Why it works: Artichoke and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 636 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

To Drefs a Mock Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the calf's head

  1. Scald the calf's head in water until the hair comes off.

  2. Clean and wash it in warm water.

  3. Boil the head for 45 minutes.

  4. Remove it from the water and split it down the face.

  5. Carefully cut off the meat with the skin, avoiding breaking the ears.

  6. Place it on a flat dish and stuff the ears with force-meat, tying them with cloths.

  7. Remove the eyes and pick all the remaining meat from the bones.

Make the soup

  1. Place the meat in a stuffing pan with the best part of another boiled calf's head and the veal gravy.

  2. Let it simmer over moderate heat for 1 hour.

  3. Add the fried sweetbreads, morels, truffles, artichoke bottoms, chopped anchovy, cayenne pepper, salt, lemon juice, Madeira wine, mushroom ketchup, lemon pickle, and mushrooms.

  4. Simmer slowly for 30 minutes.

  5. Thicken with flour and butter.

Prepare the garnish and serve

  1. Prepare the yolks of 4 hard-boiled eggs and the brains, cutting the brains into nutmeg-sized pieces.

  2. Make a rich force-meat and spread it on the caul of a leg of veal.

  3. Roll it up and boil in a cloth for 1 hour.

  4. After boiling, cut the meat into 3 parts, placing the head over the meat with the skin side up.

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. Artichoke + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together636 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  3. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

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

  4. Artichoke + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together447 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Artichoke + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Supplies the meat, skin and gelatinous body that give the soup its rich, full texture.
Veal gravy
Forms the savoury meat-based liquid that carries the body of the soup.
Sweetbreads
Add a tender, creamy texture that contrasts with the firmer meats.
Madeira wine
Adds depth, sweetness and aroma to the broth as it simmers.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, fuller-bodied soup.
Butter
Enriches the thickened soup, adding fat and a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Thicken with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked into the butter and simmered in the hot liquid, or it stays lumpy or tastes raw. Whisking steadily prevents clumps and gives an even, smooth body.

“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

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesArtichoke SoupArtichoke Soup55 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipes