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Soup

Mock Turtle or Calf's-head Soup

A soup made from calf's head and pig's feet, seasoned with herbs and spices, with egg-yolk force-meat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Mock Turtle or Calf's-head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the head and feet

  1. In a large pot, place the cleaned calf's head and pig's feet, then cover with 1 gallon of water.

  2. Boil for 3 hours, or until the meat falls from the bones.

  3. Remove the head and set aside; continue boiling the feet until the meat is tender.

Prepare the meat

  1. Carefully chop the meat from the head and tongue, then season with salt, pepper, marjoram, thyme, cloves, mace, allspice, and nutmeg.

  2. Remove the bones from the feet, leaving the gelatinous meat.

  3. Combine all the meat in the pot and boil slowly for 2 more hours without removing the cover.

Chill and finish

  1. Let the soup cool and refrigerate overnight.

  2. An hour before serving, reheat the stock and strain it carefully.

  3. Cut the reserved meat into small squares and add to the soup.

  4. To make force-meat balls, mash the egg yolks in a bowl, adding brains, butter, and salt to moisten.

  5. Mix in the beaten eggs, then form into balls, dusting your hands with flour.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 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 gelatin and meaty body for a rich, full-bodied stock.
Pig's feet
Release gelatin during long simmering, giving the soup a silky, thickened texture.
Eggs
Beaten eggs bind the force-meat balls so they hold their shape when cooked.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Crumbled yolks form a moist, tender base for the force-meat balls.
Butter
Adds fat that moistens the force-meat mixture and adds richness.

The step that matters

Simmering the stock slowly without the cover. Gentle, prolonged simmering extracts gelatin and flavour from the bones and meat, while a rolling boil can make the stock cloudy and tough the meat.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

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