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Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made with rump steak, potatoes, carrots, onions, celery, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, place the rump steak and cover with water.

  2. Add chopped vegetables and seasoning.

  3. Simmer for 1-2 hours until the meat is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the meat, shred it, and return it to the pot.

  2. Serve hot with optional herbs for garnish.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steak
Provides the meat that becomes tender and shreds into the soup during long simmering.
Vegetables
Carrots, onions and celery add sweetness and aroma to the broth as they cook.

The step that matters

Simmer until the meat is tender. Rump steak is a tougher cut, and long, gentle simmering breaks down its connective tissue so it becomes tender. Cooking too hard can toughen the meat, so keep the liquid at a gentle simmer.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, carrot, onion, celery, pepper, thyme):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Dillfits less well
  4. Rosemaryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, carrot, onion, celery, pepper, thyme. 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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