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Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made from calf's head, ham, onion, carrot, beef, flour, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper 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

Prepare the head

  1. Soak the calf's head in salt and water for 1 hour.

  2. Place the head in a pot with cold water, ham, onion, and carrot.

  3. Boil until the flesh is well cooked.

  4. Remove the meat and press it between two plates.

Make the stock

  1. Return the bones to the pot and boil until the stock is reduced by half.

  2. Strain the stock into a basin and let it cool; remove the fat.

Finish the soup

  1. Season the chopped beef with salt and pepper, then roll into small balls.

  2. Mix the flour and roll into small balls.

  3. Add the beef and flour balls to the stock along with sherry.

  4. Boil everything together for another 30 minutes.

  5. Cut the reserved meat into small pieces and add to the soup.

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. Carrot + peppertop 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. Onion + beeftop 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. Carrot + beeftop 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

Calf's head
Provides gelatinous flesh and bones that give the stock body and richness.
Chopped beef
Forms the meatballs, adding savory meaty flavor and texture to the soup.
Flour
Binds the small beef balls so they hold their shape while simmering.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Boil the stock down by half. Reducing the stock concentrates its flavor and gelatin. Boiling too hard or for too long can make it cloudy or overly salty, so watch the volume closely.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, carrot, beef, pepper, flour, sherry):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Parsnipfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, carrot, beef, pepper, flour, sherry. 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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