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Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made from calf head and feet, flavored with allspice, cloves, nutmeg, catsup, lemon juice, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Clean the calf's head and feet thoroughly.

  2. Separate the jaws and remove the brains.

  3. Place the meat in cold water and heat slowly, skimming carefully.

  4. Once cooked, remove the meat and set aside until the next day.

  5. Skim off the fat, pick the meat from the bones, and chop finely.

  6. Combine the meat and broth in a pot.

Season and thicken

  1. Tie allspice and cloves in a thin muslin cloth and add to the soup along with grated nutmeg.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste, stirring frequently to prevent burning.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of browned flour batter for each gallon of soup half an hour before it's done.

  4. If desired, add force-meat balls.

Finish and serve

  1. Fifteen minutes before serving, stir in ½ cup of catsup for each quart of soup.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice for each gallon.

  3. Just before serving, add the sliced yolks of hard-boiled eggs.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Provides gelatin and body, giving the soup its rich, thick texture.
Calf's feet
Supply collagen that dissolves into gelatin, adding body and mouthfeel to the broth.
Browned flour batter
Thickens the soup as its starch swells, and adds a nutty, toasted color and flavor.
Catsup
Adds sweet-tangy acidity and deepens the color and savory flavor of the soup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich broth and balances its fattiness.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a creamy, crumbly texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the browned flour batter. Stirring in the flour batter too early or without enough heat can leave lumps or a raw floury taste. Adding it about half an hour before done lets the starch swell evenly and cook out fully, thickening the soup smoothly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, clove, nutmeg, pepper, flour, meat, egg):

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, clove, nutmeg, pepper, flour, meat, egg. 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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