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Turtle Soup

A soup made from turtle, beef, veal, roasted fowls, vegetables, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turtle

  1. Decapitate the turtle and let it drain head down in a tub.

  2. The next day, remove the undershell and meat, cut off the fins, and discard the intestines.

  3. Boil the shells, fins, and head briefly to remove the outer skin, then cool in cold water.

Make the stock

  1. In a stock pot, combine beef, veal, and water; bring to a boil and skim off scum.

  2. Add roasted fowls, carrots, turnips, onions, leeks, celery, and salt; simmer for 4 hours.

  3. Strain the broth and set aside for use.

Finish the soup

  1. Place cleaned turtle shells and fins in a pot, moisten with stock, and bring to a boil.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 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

Turtle
Provides the main meat and the shells and fins that flavour the soup.
Shin of beef
Releases gelatin and savoury flavour into the stock during long simmering.
Knuckle of veal
Adds gelatin and body, giving the stock a fuller, richer texture.
Partially roasted fowls
Add roasted, browned flavour and depth to the simmering broth.
Leeks
Contribute a mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the stock.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum after the boil. Impurities and coagulated proteins rise to the surface as the liquid heats. Skimming them early keeps the broth clear and prevents off flavours from returning into the stock during the long simmer.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, carrot, turnip, leek, celery):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Lettucefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, carrot, turnip, leek, 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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