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A Simple Mock-turtle Soup

A broth made from pig's feet and veal, seasoned with herbs, enriched with a roux, and served with meatballs and optional hard-boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,973 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

A Simple Mock-turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine pig's feet, veal, and cold water in a large pot.

  2. Simmer for 5 hours, reducing to 2 quarts.

  3. Strain the soup and let it sit overnight.

  4. Skim off the fat and remove any sediment.

Make the soup

  1. About 30 minutes before serving, heat the soup and season with thyme, mace, and cloves.

  2. Simmer for 10 minutes.

  3. In a saucepan, melt the butter.

  4. Once bubbling, add the flour and stir until light brown.

  5. Mix in the soup using an egg whisk.

Prepare the meatballs and garnish

  1. For the meatballs, chop some veal and finely chop an equal amount of suet.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  3. Bind with raw egg yolks and breadcrumbs, then form into small balls.

  4. Fry the meatballs in boiling lard or boil in water for 2-3 minutes.

  5. Cut the meat from the cold feet into pieces resembling turtle meat.

  6. In a soup tureen, combine the meatballs, pieces of calf's feet, and whole yolks or slices of hard-boiled eggs.

  7. Season the soup with lemon juice and sherry just before serving.

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. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  2. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pig's feet or calf's feet
Release gelatin and body into the stock, giving the soup a rich, thick mouthfeel.
Veal
Adds meaty flavor to the stock and body to the meatballs.
Butter
Forms the fat base for the roux that thickens the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as part of a butter roux, cooked until light brown.
Raw yolks of eggs
Bind the meatballs together so they hold their shape.
Cracker or bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the meatballs.

The step that matters

Add the flour to the butter and stir until light brown. The roux must be cooked evenly; undercooked flour leaves a raw starchy taste, while overheating scorches it and makes the soup bitter and dark. Stirring keeps it smooth before the soup is added.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, thyme, clove, butter, flour, pepper, lemon. 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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