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Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made from calf head, liver, lights, and vegetables simmered in broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head and broth

  1. Soak the calf's head in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Wash the head thoroughly.

  3. In a large pot, boil the head in 6 quarts of cold water for 2 hours.

  4. Add the liver and lights, and tie the brains in a small cloth.

  5. Boil for an additional 1.5 hours.

  6. Remove the head and strain the broth into a stone jar.

  7. Let the broth cool overnight.

  8. The next day, remove the fat from the broth.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine 1 quart of the stock and 1 quart of cold water.

  2. Add the onions, carrots, turnips, celery, cloves, peppercorns, and salt.

  3. Boil slowly for 2 hours.

  4. In a flat-bottomed soup pot, heat a little butter and brown the finely chopped onions, stirring constantly.

  5. Dredge in a little flour.

  6. Add the calf's head cut into small pieces.

  7. Strain the vegetables from the stock and add everything to the soup pot.

  8. Let it boil for 1 hour.

  9. For a darker soup, add 1 tablespoon of allspice if desired.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 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. Onion + turniptop 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

Calf's head
Provides the gelatinous meat and body that give the soup its texture.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly when browned with the onions in butter.
Butter
Carries the browning of the onions, adding roasted flavour and richness.
Onions
Browned first to build deep savoury sweetness and colour in the soup.

The step that matters

Browning the onions in butter. Stirring constantly keeps the finely chopped onions from scorching, since burnt onions turn the soup bitter instead of richly browned.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, onion, carrot, turnip, celery, butter, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, onion, carrot, turnip, celery, butter, flour. 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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