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Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made from calf's head, vegetables, and seasonings, thickened with butter and flour, finished with catsup, Worcestershire sauce, and sherry wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Unjoint the jaw of the calf's head and remove the brains.

  2. Wash all ingredients in several cold waters.

  3. Place all the meat in a soup kettle and cover with plenty of water.

  4. Set over moderate heat, skim frequently, and let boil slowly for about two hours.

  5. Remove the meat and return the bones to the kettle.

  6. Add the chopped vegetables, salt, and pepper.

  7. Simmer for two more hours.

  8. Strain the soup and refrigerate overnight.

Make the soup

  1. In the morning, remove the grease and cut the meat, including the tongue, into small pieces and return to the soup.

  2. In a saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter until browned.

  3. Stir in 4 tablespoons of flour until smooth, then add to the soup and boil for five minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Remove from heat and season with 2 tablespoons of catsup, 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, and the sherry wine.

Serve

  1. When serving, add a thin slice of lemon to each soup plate and top with grated yolks and chopped whites of 2 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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Provides meat, gelatin and body for the stock as it simmers.
Butter
Forms a roux with the flour, adding richness and a nutty, browned flavour.
Flour
Thickens the soup once cooked into the butter, giving it a smooth body.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the finished soup.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury, tangy depth that rounds out the soup's flavour.
Catsup
Adds sweetness and acidity, deepening the tomato-savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Browning the butter and flour roux. Cooking the butter and flour until browned builds flavour, but if it burns it turns bitter. Stirring constantly and stopping at a rich brown keeps the thickener smooth and tasting clean before it goes into the soup.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, parsley, turnip, clove, leek, sherry, wine):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, parsley, turnip, clove, leek, sherry, wine. 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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