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Mock Turtle Soup, of Calf's Head

A soup made from calf's head, ham, herbs, and broth, finished with Madeira or sherry and force-meat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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, of Calf's Head

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the calf's head

  1. Scald the calf's head.

  2. Remove the brain.

  3. Tie the head in a cloth.

  4. Boil for 1 hour until the meat slips from the bone.

  5. Remove the meat.

  6. Save the broth.

  7. Cut the meat into small pieces.

  8. Place the pieces in cold water to cool.

  9. In a stewpan, combine the meat pieces with the reserved broth.

  10. Boil until tender.

  11. Set aside.

Make the soup

  1. In another stewpan, melt some butter.

  2. Add the diced ham, fine herbs, parsley, and onion.

  3. Pour in about 4 cups of broth.

  4. Let it simmer for 2 hours.

  5. Stir in a small quantity of flour.

  6. Add the remaining broth and the Madeira or sherry.

  7. Let the mixture stew quietly for 10 minutes.

  8. Strain it through a medium sieve.

  9. Add the calf's head pieces.

  10. Season with cayenne pepper, salt, lemon juice, mace, and sugar.

  11. Add the prepared force-meat balls.

  12. Serve hot after 5 minutes.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Provides the gelatinous meat and body that give the soup its rich texture.
Butter
Fat that softens the onion and ham and carries the aroma of the herbs.
Flour
Thickens the stock slightly so the soup has a fuller body.
Madeira or sherry
Adds fortified wine sweetness and depth that rounds out the broth.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich broth and balances its savoriness.
Ham
Contributes savory, salty meatiness to the stock.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Flour added to hot fat and then stirred well can clump if added in too large an amount or without enough mixing. A small quantity, stirred in evenly before the liquid goes in, thickens the broth smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter, parsley, flour, sherry, pepper, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, parsley, flour, sherry, pepper, lemon. 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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