Skip to main content
Main

Turtle Soup

A soup made from turtle meat, beef, spices, and Madeira wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turtle

  1. Remove the turtle from its shell and cut it into pieces for easier scalding.

  2. Place the turtle pieces and fins into a pot and scald them.

  3. Remove the coarse skin from the fins and set aside for another dish.

  4. Peel off the thick skin of the stomach to reveal the fat (citron).

Make the soup

  1. In a separate pot, boil the leg of beef to create a gravy.

  2. Add the turtle pieces to the beef gravy and cover with water, about 2 inches above the meat.

  3. Let the mixture boil slowly for 3 hours.

  4. Add mace, allspice, and cloves.

  5. Season with salt, black pepper, and cayenne to taste when the soup is half done.

  6. Include parsley, thyme, and onions while boiling.

  7. Thicken the soup with 2 tablespoons of flour near the end of cooking.

  8. Burn 1 tablespoon of brown sugar.

  9. Add ⅓ cup of water to create coloring.

  10. Use 2 tablespoons of this in the soup.

Finish with forcemeat, eggs and wine

  1. Make forcemeat balls with a bit of turtle meat, ham, and the egg yolk, seasoned with herbs.

  2. Roll the mixture into balls and fry them.

  3. Slice the hard-boiled eggs.

  4. Add the sliced eggs and ½ pint of Madeira wine to the soup.

  5. Allow the soup to cook a little after adding the wine 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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole turtle
Forms the main body of the soup and provides its rich, gelatinous meat and fat.
Leg of beef
Simmered first to make a savoury gravy that gives the soup its depth.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the soup has a fuller body.
Brown sugar
Burned to make a dark coloring that deepens the soup's appearance and adds a caramel note.
Egg yolk
Binds the forcemeat balls so they hold their shape while frying.
Madeira wine
Adds a rich, slightly sweet and acidic aroma to finish the soup.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour near the end of cooking. Flour must be cooked long enough to lose its raw starchy taste and to thicken evenly; adding it too early or stirring poorly can cause lumps or a pasty flavour.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, allspice, clove, pepper, parsley, thyme, onion):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, allspice, clove, pepper, parsley, thyme, onion. 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.

More turtle soup recipes

Mock 441Green 33Clear 6 See all 139 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes