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Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made from calf's head, stock, vegetables, tomatoes, and Madeira wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 head

  1. Clean and wash the calf's head, then soak it for 1 hour in cold water and cover.

  2. Cook the head in 1 quart of boiling salted water with the seasoning and vegetables until tender.

  3. Remove the head and boil the stock until reduced to 1 quart. Strain and cool.

Make the soup

  1. Melt and brown the butter, then add the flour and stir until well browned.

  2. Slowly pour the browned mixture over the brown stock.

  3. Add the head stock, tomatoes, diced flesh meat, and lemon juice. Simmer for 5 minutes.

  4. Add diced custard and egg balls or meatballs. Stir in Madeira wine, salt, and pepper to taste.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 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

Butter
Browned with the flour to build a nutty, deeply colored base for the soup.
Flour
Cooked with the browned butter to form a roux that thickens the soup.
Calf's head
Provides the gelatinous meat and body that give the soup its rich texture.
Brown stock
Forms the savory liquid base that the roux is whisked into.
Stewed and strained tomatoes
Add acidity and a rounded tomato flavor to balance the rich stock.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Pouring the browned roux over the brown stock. Adding the hot roux slowly while stirring keeps it dispersed, so it thickens the stock smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, pepper, allspice, thyme, carrot, butter, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, pepper, allspice, thyme, carrot, 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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