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Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made from calf's head, beef stock, vegetables, herbs, and browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Wash the calf's head in several waters.

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

  3. Place the head in a saucepan with the beef stock.

  4. Simmer gently for 1 hour, removing any scum that rises.

  5. Remove the head from the stock.

  6. Let the head cool.

  7. Cut the meat into 1-inch pieces.

  8. Refrigerate the meat pieces.

Make the soup

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter.

  2. Fry the minced onion until browned.

  3. Add the browned onion to the stock.

  4. Return the bones to the stock.

  5. Continue to simmer, removing scum until no more rises.

  6. Add the carrot, turnip, parsley, herbs, celery, mace, lemon rind, salt, and pepper to taste.

  7. Boil gently for 2 hours.

  8. Strain the soup through a cloth.

Thicken and finish

  1. Mix the browned flour with 1 pint of the soup.

  2. Let the mixture simmer until thick.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 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 rich, thick character.
Beef stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the flavour of every other ingredient.
Browned flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells and settles into a smooth, body-giving sauce.
Butter
Fat that browns the onion, adding a toasted, savoury depth to the soup.
Onion
Browned in butter to add sweetness and savoury depth to the stock.
Lemon rind
Adds bright aromatic oils that lift the rich, heavy flavour of the soup.

The step that matters

Simmer gently and skim the scum. Rapid boiling churns fats and proteins into the liquid, making the soup cloudy and greasy. Gentle simmering with regular skimming keeps it clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, onion, carrot, turnip, parsley, 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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