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Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made from calf head, feet, veal cutlets, onions, flour, spices, eggs, and lemon, served with port or sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Boil the calf's head and feet in plenty of water until the bones can be removed.

  2. In the same water, boil the veal cutlets until tender for the forcemeat balls.

  3. Chop the veal cutlets with a little spice for the balls.

Season and finish the soup

  1. Add the brown flour to the broth.

  2. Add the fried onions to the broth.

  3. Add salt to the broth.

  4. Add pepper to the broth.

  5. Add spices to the broth.

  6. Before skimming the soup, add savory to the broth.

  7. Add marjoram to the broth.

  8. Add thyme to the broth.

  9. Cut the cheek pieces from the head into small squares and add to the soup.

  10. Hard boil the eggs.

  11. Chop the whites of the eggs.

  12. Add the yolks whole to the soup.

Serve

  1. When serving, add port or sherry to taste.

  2. Garnish with lemon slices or stir in lemon juice.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Brown flour
Thickens the broth so it has body and a smooth, rich texture.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they cook down into the broth.
Eggs
Hard-boiled whites and yolks add texture and richness to the finished soup.
Calf's head
Gives the broth its gelatin, body and meaty flavor as it simmers.

The step that matters

Adding the brown flour to the broth. Flour added to hot liquid clumps unless it is well whisked or mixed with a little cold liquid first. Smooth incorporation gives an even, velvety thickness.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, flour, butter, pepper, marjoram, thyme, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, flour, butter, pepper, marjoram, thyme, 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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