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Mock-turtle Soup {Mrs. Reynolds' Recipe}

A soup made from calf head and feet, onions, spices, and veal force‑meat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mock-turtle Soup {Mrs. Reynolds' Recipe}

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the calf's head and feet until the meat separates from the bones.

  2. Remove the bones and cut the meat into 1-inch pieces; return to the pot.

  3. Boil for 2 more hours.

Make the soup

  1. Chop the brains finely and add to the pot with onions, parsley, and spices.

  2. Roll the crackers with butter and add to the soup near the end of cooking.

  3. Brown some flour and stir it into the soup.

Serve

  1. Make force-meat balls from veal, fry them, and place them in the bottom of the serving tureen.

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

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

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head and feet
Provide gelatin and rich body as the meat is simmered down into the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the soup.
Crackers
Thicken the soup slightly as they soften in the hot liquid.
Flour
Browned flour thickens the soup and adds a toasted, nutty colour and flavour.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they cook into the broth.

The step that matters

Brown the flour. Flour browns quickly and can scorch to a bitter taste if left unattended. Cook it gently and stir constantly until evenly coloured before adding it to the soup, so it thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, parsley, clove, pepper, butter, flour, veal):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, parsley, clove, pepper, butter, flour, veal. 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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