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Mock Turtle Soup

A hearty soup made from calf's feet, beef gravy, wine, onion, herbs, spices, egg yolks, truffles, forcemeat balls, and citrus juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Break the bones of the calf's feet and stew them in enough water to cover.

  2. Remove the feet when the meat and gristle separate from the bones.

Finish the soup

  1. Return the meat to the pot with beef gravy, wine, onion, herbs, salt, mace, Jamaica pepper, and Cayenne in a muslin bag.

  2. Boil until well combined, then add the yolks of hard-boiled eggs, truffles, and forcemeat balls.

  3. Add lemon or orange juice to enhance the flavor.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  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 feet
Breaks down into gelatin and gristle that give the soup body and a rich, sticky texture.
Beef gravy
Adds savoury depth and meaty flavour to the broth.
White or port wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the broth.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Thicken the soup slightly and add a rich, creamy body.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, port wine, onion, clove, pepper, egg, truffle):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, port wine, onion, clove, pepper, egg, truffle. 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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