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Mock Turtle Soup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Summer savory and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 125 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Make stock for the soup using fresh meat or salt pork.

  2. In another pot, boil black beans for 2 hours.

  3. Strain the beans through a colander into the soup.

  4. Add cloves, summer savory, sweet marjoram, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  5. Strain the soup a second time before serving.

  6. Add sliced lemon and sliced hard boiled eggs before serving.

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. Summer savory + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  3. Beans + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together39 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Clove + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Clove + summer savorytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, clove, summer savory, marjoram, pepper, lemon, egg):

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Lentilsfits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, clove, summer savory, marjoram, pepper, lemon, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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