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Turtle Soup

A soup made from fresh turtle, vegetables, herbs, and stock, finished with a roux and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram 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 ↓

Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. If using the head, fins, or shell, prepare them as needed.

  2. Cut the flesh away from the bones and divide it into convenient pieces.

  3. Place all the pieces in a large pot with the water.

Make the stock

  1. Add the carrots, turnip, eschalots, mixed herbs, onion, peppercorns, ham, knuckle veal, sugar, and salt.

  2. Boil for 6 hours, then remove the flesh and set it aside to cool.

Finish the flesh and stock

  1. Once cool, cut the flesh into cubes and place them in a soup tureen.

  2. Strain the stock from the bones and skim off any fat.

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, melt butter and add flour and sugar, stirring until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the stock, boiling for 15 minutes while stirring continuously.

  3. Add cayenne pepper and lemon juice, then pour the soup over the flesh in the 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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Marjoram + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Thyme + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Turtle
Forms the main meat, and its bones add body to the stock as it simmers.
Veal knuckle
Its bones and connective tissue release gelatin, giving the stock a fuller, silkier texture.
Ham
Adds salty, savory depth to the stock.
Lemon
Its juice adds acidity that brightens the rich stock.
Chablis or madeira wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the finished soup.
Sugar
Rounds out sharpness and balances the savory flavors.

The step that matters

Thickening the stock with the butter and flour mixture. Adding the stock gradually while stirring constantly keeps the flour dispersed, so the thickened soup stays smooth instead of lumpy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, sugar, thyme, marjoram, sage, clove):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, sugar, thyme, marjoram, sage, clove. 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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