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Mock-turtle Soup

A hearty soup made from calf's head, beef, veal, sage, onions, and various seasonings, finished with cream, eggs, and browned brain balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mock-turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Scald and clean the calf's head; boil it with the skin on in 1 gallon of water for 1 hour.

  2. When cold, cut the calf's head meat into 1-inch pieces.

  3. Stew the pieces with 2 pounds of beef, 2 pounds of veal, 2 ounces of green sage, and 5 onions in the broth.

  4. Add the bones of the head, parsley, mace, and grated lemon rind.

  5. Simmer for 3-4 hours.

  6. Strain the soup and remove the fat when cold.

Finish the soup

  1. Return the strained soup to the kettle.

  2. Add ½ pint of Madeira or claret and thicken with 1 cup of cream mixed with 1 tablespoon of flour.

  3. Just before serving, add 8-10 hard boiled eggs and the juice of 1 lemon.

Make the brain balls

  1. Boil the brains for 10 minutes, cool in cold water, chop, and mix with grated bread, salt, thyme, and 2 eggs.

  2. Roll the mixture into egg-sized balls and brown them in the oven.

  3. Add the browned balls to the soup.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  3. Sage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Provides meat and gelatin that give the soup its body and rich mouthfeel.
Cream
Mixed with flour to thicken the soup and add a smooth, rich texture.
Flour
Thickens the soup when combined with cream and stirred in.
Eggs
Hard-boiled eggs add firmness and body, while raw eggs bind the brain balls.
Madeira or claret
Adds acidity and wine flavour that rounds out the rich broth.
Grated bread
Absorbs moisture and helps the brain mixture hold its shape.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and flour mixture. Flour must be blended smoothly with the cream before it goes into hot soup; otherwise it clumps. Stirring the mixture into the soup gently keeps it smooth and prevents curdling of the cream.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, sage, parsley, mace, lemon, cream):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, sage, parsley, mace, lemon, cream. 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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