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Mock-turtle Souf

A hearty soup made with calf head, brains, ham, herbs, Madeira wine, lemon, and forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 Souf

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Clean and wash the calf's head, split it in two, and save the brains.

  2. Boil the head in plenty of water until tender.

Make the soup

  1. In a stew pan, fry the ham, parsley, thyme, leeks, cloves, and black pepper in butter until browned.

  2. Add the boiling water from the head to the stew pan.

  3. Cut the meat from the head into neat square pieces and add to the soup.

  4. Stir in the Madeira and lemon slices, then season with cayenne pepper and salt to taste.

  5. Let it simmer gently for two hours, then skim it clear and serve.

Make the forcemeat balls

  1. For the forcemeat, pour hot water over the brains in a stew pan and heat for a few minutes.

  2. Chop the brains with parsley, salt, pepper, flour, butter, and beaten egg.

  3. Form small balls and drop them into the soup fifteen minutes 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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  4. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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
Carries the aromatics and browns them, building savory flavor at the start of the soup.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor that rounds out the soup.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, heavy broth.
Egg
Binds the chopped brains into a forcemeat that holds its shape in the soup.
Wheat flour
Thickens the forcemeat mixture so the balls hold together while cooking.

The step that matters

Simmering and skimming the soup. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear, while a boil would emulsify fat and cloud it. Skimming removes the foam and fat that rise to the surface, so the finished soup stays clear.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, parsley, thyme, clove, pepper, butter, madeira wine):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekthe original
  4. Turnipfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, parsley, thyme, clove, pepper, butter, madeira wine. 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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