Name: Mock-Turtle a Second Way
Ingredients: 1 calf's head; 2 quarts veal gravy; Salt to taste; 1 pint Madeira wine; ½ teaspoon Chyan pepper; 1 ounce truffles; 1 ounce morels; 3-4 artichoke bottoms, boiled and quartered; Flour and butter for thickening

Why it works: Artichoke and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 466 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mock-Turtle a Second Way

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

Dress the hair off the calf's head and boil it for 30 minutes.
Cut the boiled head into pieces half an inch thick and one and a half inches long.

Stew and finish

Place the pieces in a stew pan with veal gravy and salt; let it stew for 1 hour.
Add Madeira wine, Chyvan pepper, truffles, and morels.
When the meat looks clear and the gravy is strong, add half a lemon and thicken with flour and butter.

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.

Artichoke + flourtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together466 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + artichoketop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,170 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Veal + truffletop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together815 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,209 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 gelatinous meat and body that give the soup its rich texture.
Veal gravy: Forms the savory base that the meat simmers in.
Madeira wine: Adds sweetness and depth of flavour as it reduces in the stew.
Truffles: Contribute a strong earthy aroma to the soup.
Morels: Add earthy flavour and a meaty, chewy texture.
Flour and butter: Thicken the gravy into a smooth, body-rich sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the thickening. Flour and butter must be cooked into a roux or blended smoothly, otherwise they clump and leave a floury taste. Thickening works best when the liquid is hot and simmering, so the starch swells evenly and the gravy sets to the right 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.

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Mock-Turtle a Second Way