Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Turtle Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the turtle
Cut the head off the turtle and let it drain.
Remove the turtle from the shell, select the liver and other usable parts, and discard the gall.
Quarter the turtle, pour boiling water over it, scrape it clean, and cut off the claws.
Place the turtle in cold water, wash thoroughly, and wipe dry.
Make the soup
In a soup kettle, heat the lard and flour until the flour is brown.
Add the chopped onion and fry until softened.
Cut the turtle meat into small pieces and fry in the lard and flour mixture for a short time.
Combine all ingredients in the kettle, adding 1 gallon of water, and boil slowly until reduced by half.
When the meat is tender, add cinnamon, mace, ground cloves, thyme, parsley, salt, cayenne, and black pepper.
Stir in the Madeira and claret.
If the turtle has eggs, add them 15 minutes before serving.
Before serving, add the juice and rind of one lemon.
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.
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Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,189 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,057 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together4,108 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Turtle
- Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering.
- Flour
- Browned in lard, it thickens the soup and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
- Lard
- Carries the browning of the flour and enriches the body of the soup with fat.
- Onion
- Softened by frying, it adds sweetness and savoury depth to the base.
- Madeira wine
- Adds sweetness and a rich, aromatic note stirred in near the end.
The step that matters
Browning the flour in lard. Flour browned too little gives a raw, pasty taste, while burning it turns the roux bitter and dark. Cooking it steadily until golden builds flavour and thickening power evenly.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, onion, cinnamon, clove, thyme, parsley, pepper):
- Allspicefits better
- Marjoramfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, onion, cinnamon, clove, thyme, parsley, 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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