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Turtle Soup

A soup made from turtle meat, veal, ham, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turtle

  1. Cut the head off the turtle and drain the body of blood.

  2. Cut the turtle into pieces: back, belly, head, fins, and intestines.

  3. Remove the gall without breaking it.

  4. Scald the turtle parts in boiling water to remove skin and shell.

  5. Cut the parts into neat square pieces and place them in cold water.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the back and belly in a little water until the bones are easily removed.

  2. Make a stock with the veal, ham, and turtle flesh, browning it well.

  3. Add water and the liquor from the boiled turtle to the stock.

  4. Work the butter and flour together, then add to the soup 10-12 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  3. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Turtle
Forms the main body of the soup and provides its meaty texture and rich flavour.
Veal
Adds body and savoury depth to the stock.
Ham
Contributes salty, smoky flavour to the stock.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks with the butter, giving it body.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour. Flour mixed with butter must be stirred in and given time to cook, or it stays raw-tasting and can form lumps. Adding it only 10-12 minutes before serving leaves little time to cook out the starch and thicken evenly, so the soup should be stirred steadily while it simmers.

“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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