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Mock Turtle Soup

A broth made from calf head, ham, vegetables, and force‑meat balls, thickened with flour and flavored with herbs and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 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 stock

  1. Wash the calf's head in water to remove blood and impurities.

  2. Cut the flesh from the bones and tie it in a clean cloth.

  3. Place it in a large stew-pan with the bones and 4 quarts of cold water and ½ tablespoon of salt.

  4. Bring to a boil, skim well, then reduce heat and simmer for 3 hours, skimming occasionally.

  5. Remove the calf's head, strain the stock, and set aside to cool.

  6. Once cool, remove all fat from the stock.

Make the soup

  1. Melt 1 ounce of butter in a stew-pan over heat.

  2. Slice the ham and clean and slice the vegetables.

  3. Fry the ham and vegetables in the butter for 10 minutes, adding spices and herbs.

  4. Stir in 3 ounces of flour, then add the stock and stir until boiling.

  5. Reduce heat and let simmer for about 10 minutes, removing any scum.

  6. Strain the soup into another saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the meat from the calf's head into small pieces and add to the soup along with ⅔ cup sherry and the force-meat balls.

  2. Squeeze in the juice of ½ lemon through a strainer.

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. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 rich texture.
Butter
Fat for frying the ham and vegetables, carrying their aroma into the soup.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, lightly bodied soup as it boils.
Sherry
Adds sweetness and acidity that rounds out the rich stock.
Lean ham
Contributes savoury, salty depth to the frying base and the finished soup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the heavy, rich stock.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter and then stirred into boiling stock; adding it without enough stirring can leave lumps and a raw, pasty taste, while cooking it briefly lets the starch thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, ham, shallot, clove, mushroom, carrot, celery):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ham, shallot, clove, mushroom, carrot, celery. 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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