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Calfs Head, or Mock Turtle, Soup

A soup made from calf's head, stock, vegetables, and seasonings, served over forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,021 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Calfs Head, or Mock Turtle, Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Boil the calf's head in cold water until the meat separates from the bones.

  2. Let it cool in the water overnight.

  3. Remove the head.

  4. Scrape off the jelly.

  5. Extract the bones.

  6. Set aside the meat from the cheeks and skull.

  7. Reserve the tongue.

Make the soup

  1. Return the jellied stock with the bones, coarser meat, chopped ears, soup herbs, scraped carrot, and fried onion.

  2. Cook steadily for 1 hour.

  3. Remove the bones.

  4. Strain the soup.

  5. Thicken the soup with the browned roux.

  6. Bring the soup to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the diced meat and tongue, lemon juice, and sherry.

  2. Serve over forcemeat balls in a hot tureen.

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 + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  3. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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 jelly that give the soup its body and richness.
Browned flour
Thickens the soup into a smooth body while adding a toasted, roasted flavour.
Butter
Carries the flavour of the aromatics and helps form the browned roux that thickens the soup.
Strained tomatoes
Adds acidity and savoury depth that give the soup its characteristic colour and tang.
Brown sherry
Adds a fortified wine sweetness and aroma to the finished soup.
Lemon juice
Adds brightness and acidity that balance the rich, gelatinous broth.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with the browned roux. Flour must be cooked into the fat and stirred smoothly into the hot liquid, or it forms lumps and leaves a raw, pasty taste. Bringing the soup to a boil afterward lets the starch fully swell and thicken.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, butter, flour, carrot, allspice, lemon, sherry):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, flour, carrot, allspice, lemon, sherry. 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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