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Calf's Head or Mock Turtle

A mock turtle made from calf's head, boiled, diced, and served with meatballs in a seasoned broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 ↓

Calf's Head or Mock Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Wash the calf's head in salt water and tie the brains in muslin.

  2. Boil the head in 4 quarts of water until the meat is tender and slips from the bones.

  3. Lay the meat flat on a platter and return the bones to the pot.

  4. Boil the bones until the water reduces to 2 quarts.

  5. Strain the broth and cool it, then remove the fat and return the broth to the fire.

  6. Add 2 quarts of rich brown stock, cloves, mace, allspice, chili, and more salt if needed.

Make the meatballs

  1. Cut the meat and tongue into dice, aiming for about 1 pint, and chop the trimmings into a paste.

  2. Cook the brains for 20 minutes.

  3. Pound the cooked brains with the chopped meat and season with salt, pepper, and thyme.

  4. Add the beaten egg to bind the mixture, shape into balls the size of large hickory nuts, and fry in butter until brown.

Thicken and serve

  1. Brown the flour in 2 tablespoons of butter or bacon fat.

  2. Slowly add hot soup to the browned flour, stirring until smooth.

  3. Add the mixture to the stock, then place the meatballs and diced meat into a hot tureen.

  4. Strain the boiling stock over the meat in the tureen.

  5. Serve with sherry wine, lemon slices, or mushroom catsup if desired.

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

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

  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 the gelatinous meat and bones that give the soup its body and richness.
Egg
Binds the chopped meat and brains so the meatballs hold their shape while frying.
Flour
Browned in fat and stirred into the broth to thicken it and add a nutty flavour.
Brown stock
Forms the savoury base of the soup, adding depth of flavour and body.
Butter or bacon fat
Fries the meatballs and browns the flour, adding richness and browning.

The step that matters

Browning the flour. Flour cooked in fat must be stirred constantly and cooked until golden; if it is rushed or left too pale or too dark, it will thicken poorly or taste raw or bitter. Adding hot liquid slowly and stirring keeps the roux smooth without lumps.

Swap the mace

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

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

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