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Green Turtle Soup

A soup made from turtle meat, entrails, bones, and fine parts simmered with herbs, onions, pepper, salt, and green fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Chop the entrails, bones, and coarse parts of the turtle meat.

  2. Put them into a gallon of water with sweet herbs, onions, pepper, and salt.

  3. Cook slowly for 4 hours.

Combine and thicken

  1. Simmer the fine parts of the turtle and green fat in ½ gallon of water for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the first soup and add the second mixture after 4 hours.

  3. Thicken slightly with browned flour and simmer together for another hour.

Add the eggs and serve

  1. If there are turtle eggs, boil them in clear water for 3 to 4 hours and add to the soup 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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 meat
Provides the main body and rich flavour of the soup.
Green fat from the turtle
Adds richness and a mellow, rounded mouthfeel to the broth.
Browned flour
Thickens the soup slightly and adds a toasted, nutty note.
Onions
Build aromatic sweetness and depth in the stock.
Eggs from the turtle
Add body and richness when cooked and added to the soup.

The step that matters

Thicken slightly with browned flour and simmer together for another hour. Flour must be added gradually and simmered long enough to cook out its raw taste and thicken evenly; adding too much or too quickly causes lumps and a heavy, pasty texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, flour, meat, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, meat, egg. 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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