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Veal Imitation of Mock Turtle

A veal-based stew flavored with calf's feet, herbs, mace, allspice, ketchup, and lemon juice, served with forcemeat balls and hard-boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 ↓

Veal Imitation of Mock Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Braise the stock

  1. Place the veal, calf's feet, onions, sweet herbs, mace, allspice, and peppercorns in an earthenware pan.

  2. Cover with cold water and tie several folds of paper over the pan.

  3. Bake in a well-heated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 3 to 4 hours until the meat is tender.

  4. Remove from the oven and let cool.

Finish and serve

  1. Skim the fat from the top of the jellied stock and cut the meat into serving pieces, removing bones and skin.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the meat with the jellied stock and ketchup, adding any additional seasoning as needed.

  3. Heat the mixture until hot, then stir in the lemon juice.

  4. Serve with forcemeat balls and hard-boiled eggs.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

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

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Breaks down into tender meat and rich gelatin as it cooks slowly in water.
Calf's feet
Release gelatin that lets the stock set into a jelly when cooled.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness, acidity and a deeper savoury colour to the finished soup.
Lemon juice
Adds brightness and acidity that lifts the rich, savoury flavour of the stock.

The step that matters

Baking until the meat is tender. Long, gentle heat is needed to break down the tough connective tissue and collagen in the veal and feet into gelatin. Stopping early leaves the meat chewy and the stock thin and unable to set.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, clove, mace, allspice, ketchup, lemon, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, clove, mace, allspice, ketchup, lemon, egg. 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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