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Mock Turtle or Calf's Head Soup

A hearty soup made from calf's head, veal, ham, potatoes, turnips, herbs, and meatballs, finished with Madeira wine and egg balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 24 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and basil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 688 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Mock Turtle or Calf's Head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Clean, wash, and soak the calf's head. Place it in a pot with the knuckle of veal and hock of ham or bacon, covering with enough water.

  2. Boil slowly for 4 hours, skimming carefully until no more scum rises.

  3. Add the sliced potatoes, turnips, chopped herbs, pepper, and salt. Cook for another hour.

Make the forcemeat balls

  1. Make about 24 small force-meat balls from minced veal and beef suet, seasoned with pepper, salt, sweet herbs, lemon peel, nutmeg, and mace. Bind with beaten egg yolk and flour, then fry in butter.

Finish the soup

  1. Remove the head and other meat from the soup. Cut the meat into small pieces and return it to the soup.

  2. Stir in the Madeira wine and prepare egg balls from the grated yolks mixed with flour and raw egg yolk. Form into marble-sized balls.

  3. Add the egg balls to the soup along with the lemon juice. Let it boil slowly 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. Marjoram + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  5. Turnip + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together367 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Gives the soup its rich body and gelatinous texture as it simmers.
Potatoes
Break down slightly during cooking, adding body and thickening the broth.
Minced veal
Forms the tender, mild base of the forcemeat balls.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat balls moist and tender when fried.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Crumbled into the egg balls, giving them a firm, crumbly structure.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Skimming during the long boil. Scum contains impurities that cloud the broth and taste bitter if left in. Skimming carefully while the head simmers keeps the soup clear and clean-flavoured.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, turnip, parsley, marjoram, basil, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, turnip, parsley, marjoram, basil, pepper. 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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