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Mock Turtle Soup

A hearty soup made from calf's head, spices, vegetables, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Wash, scrape, and clean the calf's head.

  2. Soak it in cold water for at least 1 hour.

  3. Remove the brains and tongue. Soak them in cold water to cook separately.

  4. Cut the head into pieces. Place them in a kettle with cold water.

  5. Heat slowly and skim thoroughly. Add salt.

  6. Simmer for 3 hours, or until the meat slips from the bones.

  7. Lay the meat flat on a plate to cool.

Make the stock

  1. Boil the bones again. Add spices and vegetables to the bones.

  2. Simmer until reduced to 2 quarts. Strain and cool.

  3. When cool, remove the fat.

  4. 30 minutes before serving, bring the stock to a boil.

Thicken and finish

  1. In another saucepan, brown the butter. Add flour and cook until browned.

  2. Add ground pepper, thyme or marjoram, and salt.

  3. Mix in the brown stock and cook until thickened.

  4. Cut the face meat into ½ inch cubes. Add 1 cup of diced meat.

  5. Boil the eggs for 20 minutes. Slice or make yolk balls.

  6. Make meatballs with the reserved meat.

  7. Place meatballs and hard‑boiled eggs in a tureen. Pour the soup over the meat and eggs.

  8. Serve with lemon slices or add ½ cup of sherry wine instead.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 gelatin-rich meat and body that gives the soup its character.
Eggs
Hard-boiled eggs and yolk balls add richness and texture to the finished soup.
Flour
Browned with butter, it thickens the stock into a smooth, lightly nutty body.
Butter
Browned to add fat, nutty aroma and colour before the flour is cooked in.
Brown stock
Forms the savoury base of the soup, adding depth and body.

The step that matters

Thickening the roux. Cooking the flour in browned butter until it is fully browned develops flavour and colour and removes raw starch taste; stirring in the stock too early can leave lumps, so add it gradually and cook until smooth and thickened.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, carrot, pepper, turnip, onion, egg, celery):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, carrot, pepper, turnip, onion, egg, celery. 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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