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Mock Turtle Soup

A broth made from a calf's head, ham, onions, and seasonings, thickened with butter and flour, finished with wine and mushroom catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Clean the calf's head thoroughly, remove the eyes, and cut off the nose.

  2. Soak the head for 10 minutes.

Make the broth

  1. Place the head in a pot with 5 quarts of water, ham, onions, and salt.

  2. Boil the head until tender.

  3. Strain the broth.

  4. Add cloves, nutmeg, parsley, and thyme, and let it stew slowly for 1 hour.

Finish the soup

  1. Mix the butter with flour.

  2. Add the mixture, wine, and mushroom catsup to the soup.

  3. Add the meat back into the soup or serve without, as preferred.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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 meat and gelatin that give the soup its body and rich texture.
Butter and flour
Flour thickens the broth into a smooth body, while butter adds richness and flavour.
Wine
Adds acidity and depth that balance the richness of the broth.
Mushroom catsup
Adds savoury, umami depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Mix the butter with flour. Flour mixed into fat forms a roux that thickens the broth without lumps; adding it raw or unmixed can clump and leave floury specks.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, clove, nutmeg, parsley, thyme, butter, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, clove, nutmeg, parsley, thyme, butter, flour. 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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