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Soup

Mock Turtle Soup

A hearty soup made from calf head, bones, and aromatics, finished with butter, ham, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Remove the flesh from the calf's head, cutting from between the ears to the nose, and take off all the flesh.

  2. Cut open the jawbone from underneath and remove the tongue whole.

  3. Crack the skull between the ears and take out the brains; soak all in salt water.

Make the stock

  1. Wash the skull and place it in a pot with 4 quarts of cold water, the flesh, tongue, parsley, celery, bay leaf, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, peppercorns, carrot, and turnip.

  2. Simmer for about 2 hours until the flesh is tender; remove the tongue to serve separately.

  3. Simmer the bones for 6 hours, then strain and set aside the stock.

  4. In another pot, simmer a beef or veal soup bone with scraps of poultry in 2-3 quarts of water until reduced.

  5. The next day, remove the fat from both stocks.

Finish the soup

  1. In a 2-quart stew pan, melt 2 ounces of butter, then stir in 1 ounce of ham and 1 heaping tablespoon of flour until brown.

  2. Pour the reduced stock over the mixture, mix well, and strain.

  3. Add ½ pound of diced calf's head to 1 quart of boiling hot calf's head stock.

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 + cinnamontop 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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  5. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head flesh
Provides the main body and gelatinous texture of the soup.
Butter
Fat that carries flavor and forms the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the stock when browned with butter and ham.
Ham
Adds savory, salty depth to the browned roux.

The step that matters

Browning the butter, ham and flour. Cooking the roux until brown builds nutty, toasted flavor and color, but burning it turns the soup bitter and dark. Stir constantly and watch closely.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, celery, clove, cinnamon, allspice, carrot, butter):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipthe original
  3. Leekfits less well
  4. Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, celery, clove, cinnamon, allspice, carrot, butter. 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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