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Mock Turtle

A stuffed beefsteak filled with turkey dressing, wrapped in bacon, baked and served with a gravy thickened with browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and turkey are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,636 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Mock Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut a pocket in the beefsteak and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Fill the pocket with turkey dressing and sew it up.

  3. Fasten slices of fat bacon on the roll with toothpicks.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake the roll, basting often.

  2. Add a little boiling water during the last half hour of baking.

  3. Before serving, thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  4. Remove the bacon and toothpicks before 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. Pepper + turkeytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Turkey + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together963 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

What each ingredient does

Beefsteak
Forms the outer roll and provides the main meat flavour and chewy texture.
Turkey dressing
Fills the pocket, adding savoury flavour and moisture to the roll.
Fat bacon
Bastes the roll as it cooks, adding fat, moisture and savoury flavour.
Browned flour
Thickens the pan gravy, giving it body and a toasted, nutty flavour.

The step that matters

Adding boiling water late in baking. Adding water near the end of baking helps make gravy from the pan drippings without drying or scorching the meat. Basting keeps the surface moist so the roll cooks evenly.

“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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