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Turkey Soup

A soup made from a turkey carcass, water, spices, browned flour, lemon, and hard‑boiled egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Turkey Soup

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Turkey Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Place the turkey carcass in a pot with 3 quarts of water and boil down to 2 quarts.

  2. Strain the soup and let it cool overnight.

  3. Skim off the fat from the cooled soup.

Finish and serve

  1. While warming the soup, add cinnamon, cloves, allspice, mace, and enough browned flour to thicken slightly.

  2. Just before serving, stir in the sliced lemon and the hard-boiled egg.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

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

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey carcass
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the stock as it simmers.
Browned flour
Thickens the soup slightly and adds a toasted, nutty flavor.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced broth.
Hard-boiled egg
Adds soft, mild richness and body to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Skim off the fat from the cooled soup. Fat that rises and sets on cooled stock can make the soup greasy and heavy. Chilling overnight lets the fat solidify on top so it lifts off cleanly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, cinnamon, clove, allspice, flour, lemon, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, cinnamon, clove, allspice, flour, lemon, 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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