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How to Boil Green Turtle

A soup made by boiling green turtle flesh, shell, veal bones, and aromatics to produce stock and diced turtle meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

How to Boil Green Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine turtle flesh, shell, veal bones, salt, carrot, turnip, onion, parsley, sweet herbs, mace, and peppercorns in a large pot with cold water.

  2. Bring to a gentle boil.

  3. Skim off any scum that rises.

  4. Cover the pot.

  5. Simmer until the turtle becomes tender.

  6. Remove tender pieces.

  7. Cool them.

  8. Wrap in a wet cloth.

  9. Store in a cool place.

  10. Continue boiling the bones and shells for 5 to 6 hours.

  11. Strain the stock.

  12. Reserve it for soup and sauces.

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the dark under shell until tender.

  2. Cut into half-inch dice for the soup.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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

Turtle flesh
Provides the main meat and body of the soup once simmered until tender.
Veal bones
Release gelatin and body into the stock during long simmering, giving the soup richness.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavour to the stock as it simmers with the other vegetables.

The step that matters

Skim off any scum that rises. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the liquid heats. Removing it early keeps the stock clear and free of bitter, off flavours.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, turnip, onion, clove, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, turnip, onion, clove, parsley. 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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